Islamabad : Pakistani authorities sacked some people having “negative tendencies” working with the country’s sensitive nuclear programme to keep it safe, according to a report. “We filtered out people having negative tendencies that could have affected national security,” said Brig (retd.) Tahir Raza Naqvi, who works for Strategic Plans Division, the administering body for the nuclear programme.
Those sacked were the “incorrigible” ones, he said, and quickly added: “Our checks are very solid.” The sacked nuclear workers could not clear the Personnel Reliability Programme that was started in mid-2003/04 to screen the employees working on the sensitive programme, Naqvi was quoted as saying by the Dawn.
He was addressing a seminar yesterday on ‘Future Security Outlook of South Asia: Trends and Challenges’ organised by an Islamabad-based think tank, Centre for International Strategic Studies, and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of Germany.
Naqvi said all employees of the nuclear programme are periodically checked for family background, education, political affiliation and religious inclinations. He would not say how many were sacked over the years.
Sajjad Hussain
