ISLAMABAD: Nuclear scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered in Pakistan as the father of the country’s atomic weapons program, was buried after funeral prayers at Islamabad’s iconic Faisal Mosque on Sunday.

Khan died at the age of 85 on Sunday morning. Last month, he was hospitalized with COVID-19, but was discharged and sent home. He struggled with health issues for several years.

“Deeply saddened at passing away of national hero Dr. AQ Khan,” the Pakistani Foreign Office said in a statement after the announcement of Khan’s death. “Great loss. Invaluable contributions for Pakistan. Heartfelt condolences to family members and friends.”

Khan was born in India before the creation of Pakistan. His family migrated to Pakistan in 1951.

From 1961, he studied material science at the Technical University in West Berlin before moving to Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1965. In 1967, Khan received an engineering degree in materials technology and joined the doctoral program in metallurgical engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

After learning of India’s “Operation Smiling Buddha” nuclear test in 1974, Khan joined Pakistan’s clandestine efforts to develop atomic weapons when he founded Khan Research Laboratories in 1976.

Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, weeks after archrival India conducted its second series of similar tests.

“The historic contributions of Prof. A.Q. Khan will always be remembered,” Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman, chairman of the Pakistani prime minister’s Task Force on Science and Technology, told Arab News after the funeral.

“He was trained in the field of nuclear engineering and he was entrusted by former president Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to develop a nuclear weapons program,” Rahman said. “With very limited funds and immense obstacles, Dr. A.Q. Khan and his team of competent scientists and engineers took up the challenge and made Pakistan the only Islamic country to develop advanced nuclear weapons and missile systems.”

In January 2004, Khan was subjected to a debriefing by the government of then-military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf over evidence of nuclear proliferation handed to Pakistan by the US. He was pardoned but placed under house arrest in 2004 after confessing on television to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. He was freed in 2009.

After Musharraf stepped down and a new government came to power in Pakistan in 2008, Khan gave a series of media interviews in which he recanted his 2004 confession, saying that he only took the blame in return for assurances from Musharraf.

“He dedicated all his life for Pakistan and made our defense strong. We have been feeling safe due to his untiring hard work for the country. The balance which is created for Pakistan in the region is due to Dr. AQ Khan,” Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, former chairman of Pakistan’s higher education commission and a close friend of Khan, told Arab News.

“But lately, we have not given him the respect he deserved, which is regrettable.”