Nishan e Haider
                                                    نشان حیدر                                                                 The True Stories of Pakistani National Heroes


Pilot officer Rashid Minhas joined Pakustan Air Force on March 13, 1971, in the 51st GD(P) Course. On August 20 that year, he was getting ready to take off in a T-33 jet trainer in Karachi, his second solo flight in that type of aircraft. Minhas was taxiing toward the runway when a Bengali instructor pilot, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, signalled him to stop and then climbed into the instructor's seat. The jet took off and turned toward India. Later investigation showed that Rahman intended to defect to India to join his compatriots in the Bangladesh Liberation War, along with the jet trainer. In the air, Minhas struggled physically to wrest control from Rahman; each man tried to overpower the other through the mechanically linked flight controls. Some 32 miles from the Indian border, he forced the aircraft to crash in order to prevent Rahman from taking the jet to India. Both men were killed. Minhas was posthumously awarded Pakistan's top military honour, the Nishan-E-Haider, and became the youngest recipient and the only member of the Pakistan Air Force to win the award.