New Delhi: Pakistan is one of the only nine countries in the world that possess nuclear weapons. Author Iqbal Chand Malhotra’s new book ‘The Bomb, the Bank, the Mullah and the Poppies: A Tale of Deception’ gives readers a historical account of how the Pakistani state has innovatively used a dodgy bank, poppy cultivation and trade as a means to finance its nuclear programme.
Published by Bloomsbury India, ‘The Bomb, the Bank, the Mullah and the Poppies: A Tale of Deception’ will be released on 31 July on SoftCover, ThePrint’s e-venue to launch digital ebooks.
Pakistan recently got approval for a $3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund, which forms part of a long line of loans and bailout packages that global organisations and countries have lent to it. This year Pakistan’s foreign reserves had also fallen so low that it had just three weeks of import cover.
Malhotra’s book delves deep into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) which was created to fund Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. The author writes that he first got to know about it in July 1983, in Hong Kong.
Malhotra is the chairman and producer of AIM Television, New Delhi. He has directed four internationally acclaimed and award-winning feature documentaries. The author has also produced over five hundred hours of programming telecast worldwide.
He has served for several years on the panel of jurors on International Emmy Awards and is the co-author of the bestseller ‘Kashmir’s Untold Story: Declassified’.
In his new book, the author looks into how “patrons of the Pakistani deep state” has looked out for its own interests, loaded themselves with drug money at the expense of its poor citizens.
Also read: ‘Original, unique & unprecedented’: New book examines India’s history through its geography