Washington: In an amusing claim, a US writer
on nuclear issues, has said, of all places in Playboy
mazagine, that India may have been the mysterious fourth
customer of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan's
clandestine network of supplying nuclear technology.
Joshua Pollack, who writes on nuclear issues, said Khan
"provided the shortcut to a nuclear weapon" to India besides
Iran, Libya and North Korea.
India had conducted its first nuclear test on May 18,
1974, while Pakistan did it only in 1998.
Pollack offers little credible evidence to back the
contention, other than to point similarities between the
centrifuges India uses in its uranium-enrichment programme and
Pakistan's own centrifuges made by Khan.
Khan has admitted giving centrifuges and drawings that
helped North Korea begin making a uranium-based bomb.
After he confessed to running a proliferation network in
early 2004, Khan was placed under house arrest by former
Pakistan ruler Pervez Musharaff.
The restrictions were eased about two years ago by the
current government in Pakistan.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 22, 2011, 22:33