Major Raja Aziz Bhatti received Pakistan's highest award for valor. He was born in Hong Kong in 1928.

He moved to Pakistan before it became independent in 1947, and lived in the village of Ladian, in the district of Gujrat. There he enlisted with the newly formed Pakistani Army and was commissioned to the Punjab Regiment in 1950.

On 6 September 1965, as Company Commander in the Burki area of the Lahore sector, Major Bhatti chose to move with his forward platoon under incessant artillery and tank attacks for five days and nights in the defense of the strategic BRB canal.

Throughout, undaunted by constant fire from enemy shell arms, tanks and artillery, he organized the defense of the canal, directing his men to answer the fire until he was hit by an enemy tank shell which killed him on 12 September 1965. He was 37 years old.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011