Authorities in Pakistan are questioning eight officials from its nuclear weapons program regarding allegations that nuclear weapons technology was shared with Iran.

In an interview this week, relatives of one scientist who has been in detention for more than a month, Farooq Muhammad, bitterly accused the government of using low-level scientists as scapegoats to appease the United States. They said that they did not believe the American charges of Pakistani proliferation and that they feared that Mr. Muhammad was in American custody.