Zahid Ali Akbar Khan

Lieutenant General Zahid Ali Akbar (Urdu: زاہد على اكبر; b. 1933) HI(M), SBt, PE, is a former engineering officer in the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, who oversaw the civil construction of the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi, and later directing the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL), a top secret research facility developing the clandestine atomic bomb program in the 1970s. Promoted to the rank of Major General and later Lieutenant General by President Zia ul Haq, post-retirement he was targeted for political reasons by General Pervez Musharraf and forced to make a 200 million plea bargain in a corruption case in 2015 to avoid continued political persecution.

His career started in the Corps of Engineers as civil engineer before being posted to conduct the survey of Kahuta where he designed, established and later directed the enormous construction of the research site that was critical in the clandestine development of the atomic bomb program. In addition to his secretive role in the atomic bomb feasibility in the 1970s, he took up charge on collecting military intelligence on the India's nuclear program but later in the 1980s, he was appointed as an Engineer-in-Chief at the Army GHQ. His war appointment also included the command of the X Corps but appointed as Chairman of Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) as a secondment in 1984–89.^: 27 In 1989–90, he then headed the Defence Science and Engineering Organization, and later Chairing the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), overseeing the national team winning the Cricket World Cup in 1992.^: 15–43

His role in the Pakistan Atomic Bomb Program remained well hidden until a memoir written by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was released in 2009.