Today marks the 39th anniversary of a national hero of Pakistan, Rashid Minhas Shaheed, Nishan-e-Haider. He was a Pilot Officer in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), during the 1971 Pakistan-India War. He sacrificed his life on August 20, 1971 to save the honour of his beloved motherland and fail the evil designs of the enemy country, private news channel reported.
Rashid Minhas belonged to a famous Minhas clan of Rajput. He was born in Karachi. From an early age, Minhas was fascinated with aviation history and technology. He used to collect different models of aircraft and jets. He studied from Saint Mary's Academy, Lalazar and completed his O and A levels at the age of 18. He then attended Karachi University where he studied Military history and Aviation history.
Having joined the air force, he was commissioned on 13 March 1971 in the 51st GD(P) Course; on August 20 of that year, he was getting ready to take off in a T-33 trainer in Karachi when a Bengali Instructor pilot, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, gained his way into the back of the plane. He had been reported to have been watching Minhas closely for many weeks for his being new, young and inexperienced. In mid-air, Rahman knocked Minhas out with the intention of defecting to India to join his compatriots in Bangladesh along with the plane.
In mid-flight Minhas regained consciousness, and realised that his plane was being hijacked. He desperately communicated to the PAF Masroor Base at 11:30 AM, about his hijacking by Rahman. After a tussle between the two pilots, the plane crashed. The precise cause of the plane crash is unknown, except that it was the result of the struggle between Minhas and Rahman. The crash site of the T-33 was later found 40 km from the Indian border.
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