12 Facts About Rashid Minhas

Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas was a Pakistani fighter pilot and the fifth recipient of Pakistan's highest military award, the Nishan-e-Haider.

Rashid Minhas was born on 17 February 1951 to Begum Rashida Minhas, at Karachi in a Punjabi Muslim Rajput family of the Minhas clan.

Rashid Minhas used to collect different models of aircraft and jets.

The ancestors of Rashid Minhas were born in Qila Sobha Singh, East Punjab and later on they moved to Karachi and Rashid Minhas was born in Karachi.

Rashid Minhas was educated in Lahore and took admission in the British-managed St Mary's School in Rawalpindi when his father found an employment opportunity.

Rashid Minhas passed and qualified for his Senior Cambridge examination and performed well while finishing the O-level and A-level qualifications from the St Patrick's High School.

Rashid Minhas was moving toward the runway when a Bengali instructor pilot, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, signalled him to stop and then climbed into the instructor's seat.

Rashid Minhas radioed PAF Base Masroor with the message that he was being hijacked.

Rashid Minhas was posthumously awarded Pakistan's top military honour, the Nishan-e-Haider, and became the youngest man and the only member of the Pakistan Air Force to win the award.

Chaudhry thought that Rashid Minhas probably jettisoned the canopy at low altitude causing Rahman to be thrown from the cockpit because he was not strapped in.

Chaudhry felt that the jet was too close to the ground at that time, too far out of control for Rashid Minhas to be able to prevent the crash.

In doing so Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas deliberately made the supreme sacrifice for the honour of Pakistan and the service to which he belonged.