Rashid Minhas
Rashid Minhas was born on 17 February
1951, at Karachi to a Muslim Rajput family of the Minhas clan. Rashid Minhas
spent his early childhood in Karachi. Later, the family shifted to Rawalpindi.
Minhas had his early education from St Mary's Cambridge School Rawalpindi.
Later his family shifted back to Karachi. Minhas was fascinated with aviation
history and technology. He used to collect different models of aircraft and
jets. He also attended St Patrick's High School, Karachi.
Education
He 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 in Karachi. His
father, Majeed Minhas, wanted his son, Rashid, to follow his step by attending
the engineering university and strongly desired for his son to gain a degree in
engineering after finishing his high schooling in Karachi. Against the wishes
of his father, Rashid entered in the PAF School in Lower Topa in 1968, the Air
Force's officer candidate school, and forwarded towards completing his military
training at the Pakistan Air Force Academy in 1969.
Career
Rashid Minhas was a military officer in
the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). Minhas was the only PAF officer to receive the
highest valour award, the Nishan-e-Haider. He was also the youngest person and
the shortest-serving officer to have received this award.
Death
Minhas's Pakistan military citation for
the Nishan-E-Haider states that he "forced the aircraft to crash" in
order to prevent Rahman from taking the jet to India.[9] This is the official,
popular and widely known version of how Minhas died. Yawar A. Mazhar, a writer
for Pakistan Military Consortium, relayed in 2004 that he spoke to retired PAF
Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry about Minhas, and that he learned more details not
generally known to the public. According to Mazhar, Chaudhry led the immediate
task of investigating the wreckage and writing the accident report. Chaudhry
told Mazhar that he found the jet had hit the ground nose first, instantly
killing Minhas in the front seat. Rahman's body, however, was not in the jet and
the canopy was missing. Chaudhry searched the area and saw Rahman's body some
distance behind the jet, the body found with severe abrasions from hitting the
sand at a low angle and a high speed. Chaudhry thought that 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 Minhas to be able
to prevent the crash.
Legacy
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, often called Minhas-Kamra. In Karachi he was honoured by the
naming of a main road, 'Rashid Minhas Road. A two-rupee postage stamp bearing
his image was issued by Pakistan Post in December 2003; 500,000 were printed.
Written By: Rameen Tahir 9A HSPR
