Qadeer Khan body taken for burial after COVID death

STORY: Pakistan Scientist Death 2 - Qadeer Khan body taken for burial after COVID death

LENGTH: 01:44

FIRST RUN: 1310

RESTRICTIONS:

TYPE: Urdu/Natsound

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

STORY NUMBER: 4347956

DATELINE: 10 October 2021 - Islamabad

SHOTLIST:

RESTRICTION SUMMARY

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Islamabad - 10 October 2021

1. Various of mourners, army soldiers carrying casket for funeral prayers for late nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan

2. Various of people ahead of funeral prayers

3. Various of military officials and government dignities during funeral

4. People offering funeral prayers (UPSOUND) "Allah is great"

5. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Mohammad Shabbir, local resident:

"Because of him, Pakistan became a nuclear power. He is our pride, and we should be proud on him. I would say his death is a national tragedy. Today every person is very sad."

++EVENING SHOTS++

6. Wide ambulance carrying body for funeral, mourners waiting on road

7. Mid of ambulance covered in petals, while people shout (UPSOUND) "Allah is great"

8. Ambulance passing through gathering

9. Paramilitary troops

10. Wide of ambulance carrying body going towards graveyard, while crowd of mourners watch

STORYLINE:

Abdul Qadeer Khan, a controversial figure known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, died Sunday of COVID-19 following a lengthy illness, his family said. He was 85.

Khan, who launched Pakistan on the path to becoming a nuclear weapons power in the early 1970s, died in a hospital in the capital Islamabad, Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said.

Thousands of people attended a state funeral at the massive white-marble Faisal Mosque in the capital. His body was carried by an honor guard and military and political dignitaries offered funeral prayers.

Flags in Pakistan flew at half-staff.

Footage from his funeral ceremony on Sunday showed hundreds turning out to mourn.

Local resident Mohammad Shabbir said Khan was "our pride".

"I would say his death is a national tragedy. Today every person is very sad," Shabbir said.

Khan was mired in controversy that began even before he returned to Pakistan from the Netherlands in the 1970s, where he had worked at a nuclear research facility.

He was later accused of stealing the centrifuge uranium enrichment technology from the Netherlands facility that he would later use to develop Pakistan's first nuclear weapon, according to research done by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Khan, who held a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, offered to launch Pakistan's nuclear weapons program in 1974 after neighbor India conducted its first "peaceful nuclear explosion."

Since then, Pakistan has relentlessly pursued its nuclear weapons program in tandem with India. Both are declared nuclear weapons states after they conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998.

In recent years, Khan mostly lived out of the public eye and tributes from fellow scientists and Pakistani politicians began soon after his death.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, and fellow scientists, were among those who gave tributes on Sunday.

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