The youngest achiever of top military award ‘Nishan-e-Haider’ and shortest-serving officer, Rashid Minhas, is being remembered on his 50th death anniversary.
Rashid Minhas is the youngest officer to receive the Nishan-e-Haider, the highest military award, in recognition of his love for the homeland and indelible bravery. He was born on 17th February 1951 in Karachi and was commissioned as a pilot in the Pakistan Air Force in March 1971.
Minhas spent his early childhood in Karachi and later his family shifted to Rawalpindi. Minhas embraced his true passion school for aircraft and earned a degree in military and aviation history from the University of Karachi.
On 20th August 1971, during a routine training mission on a T-33 Jet trainer, Rashid Minhas was stopped by an instructor Flight Lieutenant Mati-ur-Rehman who got into the instructor’s seat, seized control, and tried to fly the jet to India.
Minhas sent a radio message to PAF Base Masroor with the message that he was being hijacked. The air controller requested that he resend his message and he confirmed the hijacking. Minhas forced the plane to crash just 32 miles from the Indian border, sacrificing his life for the nation.
Minhas was posthumously awarded top military honour, Nishan-e-Haider, and became the youngest person and only member of the Pakistan Air Force to win the award. After his death, Minhas was honoured as a national hero. In his memory, the Pakistan Air Force base at Kamra was renamed PAF Base Minhas. In Karachi, he was honoured by the naming of ‘Rashid Minhas Road’
