ISLAMABAD, 2 February 2004 — Six Pakistani nuclear scientists were placed in “protective custody” following accusations of passing nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, the Pakistani military announced yesterday.

Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan denied that Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as “the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb”, had been arrested.

Khan “is very much at his place. We just enhanced his personal security because he is a high-profile personality,” Sultan said.

Following a lengthy meeting of Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority headed by President Pervez Musharraf, and attended by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali, it was announced that Khan had been removed from his post as adviser to the federal government on nuclear affairs.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied late Thursday that Khan was the prime suspect in transferring illegal nuclear information or technology. More than a dozen officials of Pakistan’s premier nuclear facility — the Khan Research Laboratories — had been debriefed since late November when Iran disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency some Pakistani names among the sources of supplies for its nuclear program.

Sultan said the investigation into the proliferation of nuclear technology was almost complete, saying the Pakistani president will address the nation after the end of Eid.

Revered as the father of the country’s atomic bomb, Khan’s removal as adviser to the prime minister is a sensitive issue. Pakistan developed nuclear weapons from the 1970s in response to rival India’s program.

President Pervez Musharraf, who has promised to punish anyone who leaked nuclear weapons secrets abroad, has yet to decide whether Khan and others will be put on trial.

“That decision will be taken only when the investigation is complete,” Sultan told Reuters.

“If during the investigation anyone is found out, then that person will be looked into. No one is above the law.”

Musharraf, a key US ally in the “war on terror”, is under pressure from the West to pursue allegations of Pakistan’s role in the murky black market of nuclear secrets, which point to links between its scientists and Libya, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Details of Khan’s large personal fortune and extravagant lifestyle have been reported in the local press, but many refuse to blame the 69-year-old, saying he was acting at the behest of the military which was desperate to develop an atomic bomb.

Whether the net will widen to include senior military and intelligence officials, who Western diplomats say must have known about Khan’s dealings abroad, remains to be seen. Sultan said there were two retired brigadiers among the seven suspects.

Khan’s house in the capital Islamabad is under 24-hour watch, and security has been beefed up since he was sacked on Saturday.

Opposition parities were furious yesterday at the government’s sacking of Dr. Qadeer saying it was an insult and could jeopardize national security.

“It is the ultimate insult to the people of Pakistan,” Sen. Saadia Abbasi of former Premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League told AFP.

Pakistan came out of nuclear closet during Sharif’s rule in May 1998 by conducting nuclear tests. “The entire nation feels humiliated over the treatment being meted out to a national hero by the government,” Abbasi said.

“There is a grave sense of loss personally and as a nation we feel that our backbone has been broken.”

Leader of the six-party religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Mian Muhammad Aslam told AFP: “It is an attempt to make Pakistan practically insecure.”

“MMA will raise this matter in Parliament and also launch public protest to compel government to reverse disgraceful actions against our national heroes.”

Aslam said, “US and the Western countries are too uncomfortable to see an Islamic country having nuclear capability.

“The present government lacks courage to stand up against external pressures, that is why it is acting against our national heroes and jeopardizing the security of the country.”