as well as avoiding the civilian population in the area. Engineering teams were sent to de-seal, open and clean, the tunnels to keep out wild boars that are found in abundance in the Sargodha region. After preparations were completed and the tunnels were cleared out, PAEC's Diagnostic Group arrived with laboratory leader Dr. Samar Mubarakmand who came with trailers fitted with supercomputers and diagnostic equipment installed in the vans. They were followed by the Wah Group Scientists under Dr. Zaman Shaikh and PAEC's Directorate of Technical Development (DTD) under Hafeez Qureshi, with the nuclear device in sub-assembly form. The device was placed in the weapon-testing labs and monitoring systems were set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills. The device was tested using the push-button technique set in vintage style. The first test was to see whether the triggering mechanism created the necessary neutrons which would start a fission chain-reaction in the actual device. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscillators were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables. At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscillators confirmed that the neutrons had indeed come out and a chain-reaction had taken place. Test teams A series of 24 different cold tests were conducted by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. This secret weapon-testing operation was called Kirana-I by Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, a nuclear physicist, who was the laboratories director and technical member at the PAEC. Other PAEC test development personnel and teams included Hafeez Qureshi— director of the Directorate of Technical Development; Dr. Zaman Sheikh, director of the Wah Group Scientists (WGS); Dr. Naeem Ahmad Khan— director of Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD); Dr. Riazuddin— director of Theoretical Physics Group (TPG); and Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, director of the Diagnostic Group (Diag Grp). As a result, between 1983 and 1990, the PAEC's Wah Group and DTD conducted more than 24 cold tests of the nuclear device at Kirana Hills with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100–150 feet in length which were bored inside the Kirana. The explosive HMX was used to trigger the device that was tested by DTD led by Hafeez Qureshi, a mechanical