Our renowned atomic scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan while writing in the recent issue of the Newsweek magazine has argued that Bangladesh would not have won independence in 1971 if Pakistan had nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the value of nuclear weapons as an effective deterrent especially in our case cannot be denied or underestimated. But Dr Qadeer is forgetting that East Pakistans (now Bangladesh) was in political turmoil which was originally started on Feb 21, 1952 when Pakistan refused to recognize language of 56 percent of total population i.e. Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan whereas Pakistan had already refused to declare Arabic as national language of the country despite the Pakistan was obtained in the name of religion i.e. Islam. This initiated the movement for independence as Shaikh Mujibur Rahaman after creation of Bangladesh admitted in public, they were trying to get Independence since 1952. Again during the general elections held on December 07, 1970, the mandate of the majority people of East Pakistan was not accepted and power was not transferred to them by the ex-army dictator General Yahya Khan. Therefore, high level resistance movement was launched in Bangladesh and it would have not possible for anyone to stop this. MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL, Karachi, May 19.