Khushab

This article is about the city in Pakistan. For the district, see Khushab District. For places in Iran, see Khvoshab (disambiguation).

Khushab خُوشاب
City
Country	Pakistan
Province	Punjab, Pakistan
District	Khushab
Population  (2009)
• Total	110 868
Time zone	UTC+5 (PST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+6 (PDT)
Postal code	41000
Area code	0454
District Government Khushab Official Website

Khushab (Urdu: خُوشاب), is a city of Khushab District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Meaning of Khushab is sweet water. The city serves as the headquarters of Khushab Tehsil an administrative subdivision of the district.

The city of Khushab is home to the Heavy Water and Natural Uranium Research Reactor, a critical part of the Pakistan's Special Weapons Program, which has come under much heated scrutiny.

History

During colonial rule Khushab town was the headquarters of the tehsil of the same name in the Shahpur District of British Punjab. The town situated on the right bank of the Jhelum River was on the route of the Sindh-Sagar branch of the North-Western Railway.

During that time it had an extensive trade, exporting cotton, wool, and Ghee to Multan and Sukkur; cotton cloth to Afghanistan and the Derajat; and wheat grown in the Salt Range, which was considered particularly suitable for export, principally to Karachi. The municipality was created in 1867. The income during the ten years ending 1902-3 averaged Rs. 12,100, and the expenditure Rs. 11,000. In 1903-4 the income was Rs. 11,500, chiefly from octroi ; and the expenditure was Rs. 11,000. The town had an Anglo-vernacular middle school, maintained by the municipality, and a Government dispensary.

The population according to the 1901 census was 11,403.

On March 21, 2000, the Christian Science Monitor published an article written by Alexander Colhoun, a high-resolution aerial satellite photo revealed a nuclear reactor and a missile base in the city of Khushab. These pictures had mixed views, one of the expression of power that could shackle or reshape diplomatic landscapes of a region and another of the ethical question about the usage of satellite imagery in terms of privacy and national sovereignty of a nuclear-capable nation. The report was published at a time when American President Bill Clinton was due to visit India and sparked concerns worldwide. It was later clearly stated in the Dawn newspaper on June 14, 2000 that this particular nuclear reactor at Khushab and its reprocessing plant were generating between 8 to 10 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium per year, dedicated for military use.

Language

File:Map on Dialects Of Punjabi Language.jpg

Dialects of Punjabi

As per the 1998 census of Pakistan, the following are the demographics of the Khushab district, by spoken language:

• Punjabi language: 96%
• Other: 4%

Inhabitants of Khushab District speak a great variety of Punjabi dialects: which are

• Shapuri (Main dialect of the district)
• Pothohari (Northern Hilly Side),
• Thalochi (southern areas)
• Majhi or standard (in cities),
• Jandali (western areas near Mianwali).

Other Languages include:

• Urdu is mother tongue of few people but being national language is spoken and understood by sizeable population.

• English is also understood and spoken by the educated elite.

External links

• [1]
• online.org/publications/southasia/ThirdKhushabReactor.pdf Pakistan Plutonium Production Reactor at Khushab Nuclear Site