Nation remembers 1965 war hero MM Alam on his 7th death anniversary

KARACHI: The seventh death anniversary of the Indo-Pak War of September 1965 hero Muhammad Mahmood Alam, commonly known as MM Alam, is being observed today.

MM Alam was born in Calcutta on July 6, 1935. He was brought up in Bengal, India after Indo-Pak separation in 1947 his family migrated to East Pakistan.

Alam was granted a commission in PAF (then RPAF) on October 2, 1953. Alam is considered a national hero for Pakistan, most notably, for his amazing brilliance in the 1965 Pak-India war when he has performed his duty at Sargodha.

 While flying his F-86-Sabre fighter jet, MM Alam was involved in different dogfights during this war. He downed nine Indian aircraft including six Hawker Hunters in the aerial fighting and damaged two others in a short span of time.

On 7 September 1965, he downed five Indian aircraft in less than a minute, the last four within 30 seconds, setting up a world record, with a total of nine aircraft downed in the war.

He retired from PAF as an Air commodore in 1982 and settled in Karachi. Muhammad Mahmood Alam died in Karachi on March 18, 2013 at age 77.