Rashid Minhas Shaheed

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Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas or Rashid Minhas ShaheedNH, (Urdu: راشد منہاس) (February 17, 1951 – August 20, 1971) was a Pilot Officer in the Pakistan Air Force(PAF) during the 1971 Pakistan-India War. Minhas, a newly commissioned officer at that time, is the only PAF officer to receive the highest valour award, the Nishan-e-Haider. He is also the youngest person and the shortest-serving officer to have received this award. He is remembered for his death in 1971 in a jet trainer crash while struggling to regain the controls from a defecting pilot: Matiur Rahman.

Rashid Minhas was born on February 17, 1951, in karachi. A member of the established Minhas clan of Rajput, he was born to a family that had settled in Gurdaspur from Jammu and Kashmir. After the creation of Pakistan, the family migrated there and lived near Sialkot. Minhas spent his early childhood in Lahore. Later, the family shifted to Rawalpindi. Minhas had his early education from St Mary’s Cambridge School Rawalpindi. Later his family shifted to Karachi. Minhas was fascinated with aviation history and technology. He used to collect different models of aircraft and jets. He studied from Saint Mary’s Cambridge School, Murree Road, Rawalpindi and completed his O Levels at the age of 16. He also attended St Patrick’s High School, Karachi and then attended Karachi University Where he studied military history and aviation history.

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[5][6] (Urdu: شاہراہ راشد منہاس). A two-rupee postage stamp bearing his image was issued by Pakistan Post in December 2003; 500,000 were printed

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