The nation celebrated the Youm-e-Takbeer (Day of Greatness) with patriotic fervour as rallies and ceremonies held across the country to commemorate the day when Pakistan emerged as a nuclear power.

Pakistan has announced a public holiday on Youm-e-Takbeer to remember the May 28, 1998, nuclear tests at the Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai District of Balochistan.

Codenamed Chagai-I, these tests marked Pakistan’s first public demonstration of its nuclear weapons capability, making it the seventh nation in the world and the first Muslim-majority country to possess nuclear arms.

This decision came as a direct response to India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests, conducted earlier in May of the same year.