NYDailyNews.com
The two-room bungalow, the birth place of Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate, today stands empty, testament to the indifference, bigotry and prejudice surrounding the country’s greatest scientist.
Professor Abdus Salam, the child prodigy born to a humble family on the sun-blasted plains of Punjab who won accolades all over the world for his ground-breaking research in theoretical physics, is all but forgotten.
He was the trailblazer who helped pave the way to the recently hailed discovery of the “God particle” — one of the greatest achievements in science for the last 100 years — but as the world went into overdrive, Pakistan stayed largely silent.
Not even boasting from India, whose late physicist Satyendra Nath Bose also contributed to the discovery, snapped Pakistan out of lethargy.
And the reason? Because in the eyes of the law, Salam was a heretic.
“Our people are not educated. They just know this is the house of Dr Salam, who was a scientist, and they, including me, are unaware of his contributions. They also know he was Ahmadi,” said local resident Kamran Kishwar, 23.
Categories: Asia, Extremism, Pakistan, Religion & Science, Religious persecution, Research