ISLAMABAD: The father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has dissolved his political party after it failed to win a single seat in the May 11 elections.
Khan, 77, who is revered at home as a hero for building the Muslim world’s first atomic bomb, had formed his party, Tehreek-e-Tahafuz Pakistan (TTP) or Save Pakistan Movement in July last year.
“Yes, I have dissolved my party,” Khan said.
His party, which fielded 111 candidates for different seats of the national and four provincial assemblies, failed to win even a single seat.
But he said he did not want to create any additional hurdles for the ruling government now that they had been elected.
“Elections have already taken place in the country and people have given mandate to Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and we should let them function smoothly,” he said.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N scored a comfortable win in the May 11 general election, paving the way for him to become Prime Minister for an unprecedented third term.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and PPP formed their governments in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and southern Sindh provinces.
However, Khan said his party will keep monitoring the governments’ performance and would become active again if they failed to deliver.
Khan admitted in 2004 that he ran a nuclear black market selling secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea but he later retracted his remarks and in 2009 was freed from house arrest, although he was asked to keep a low profile.
Explosion kills two
A bomb explosion Saturday killed two members of a Pakistani pro-government militia and wounded four others during an archaeological dig in a tribal district on the Afghanistan border, officials said.
The incident took place in the mountainous area of Darra, 30 km northeast of Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal district, one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal regions.
“About a dozen members of the local peace committee were digging at an excavation site when a remote controlled bomb went off, killing two members and wounding four others,” senior local administration official Sardar Yousuf said.
The group were digging in the area to look for antiquities.
Another local administration official Asad Sarwar also confirmed the incident and casualties.
Pakistan has for years been fighting homegrown Taleban insurgents in its northwestern border areas with Afghanistan.
Washington considers the tribal areas a major hub of Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.