Pakistan’s Heroes
By Yasmeen Aftab Ali

We have plenty of them. I dedicate this column to the heroes of Pakistan, the strong men of our nation for whom Malika-e- Tarranum sang, “Aye watan kay sajeelay jawano, mairay naghmay tumharay liye hain” with all love and passion, those who live no more and to those who continue to live and put their lives at stake so people like you and me can live normal, day-to-day lives. This column is also dedicated to my brave soldiers conducting Zarbe- Azb trying to return us Jinnah’s Pakistan. Godspeed! Above all, this column is dedicated to people like Sattar Edhi and his lady Bilquees Edhi who have dedicated their entire lives to bringing ease to the lives of millions of Pakistanis. This article is dedicated to all the unsung heroes of Pakistan. Salute!

Owing to limitation of space, many names may not find a mention but I would like to start with my dear friend Group Captain Ali Kazim, (Tamgha-e-Basalat) who is so dear to my heart. He joined PAF Academy, Risalpur, in 1957. He shared a recount of the fateful day of 6th September, 1965. “On the afternoon of 6th September, preemptive strikes were ordered as planned earlier. Here, I must mention that the Indian Army had launched a massive attack, backed by armory to capture Lahore and have a drink in the evening at Punjab Club/Lahore Gymkhana. It was well past the time that the aircraft should have taken off to strike Halwara, I was told that I was required for briefing by Squadron Leader Rafiqui for Halwara strike. Rafiqui sahib was briefing sitting on the ground. Hardly a few minutes had passed when Flight Lieutenant Yunus Hussain walked in. He had just come back from a mission from Lahore. Rafiqui sahib asked me, ‘Kazim, if you don’t mind, let me take Yunus, he is my Flight Commander and you follow in the second wave.” “So I got up and went for briefing of the second wave of four that was to be led by Squadron Leader Moin-ur-Rab (later Air Vice Marshal). We were briefed and were to fly the aircraft that had been brought that morning from Mauripur. In the meantime, some of the senior colleagues had approached the Base Commander, (late) Air Commodore ‘Mitty’ Masud, HJ, to call off this mission as it was too late and Halwara would be up in the air with all their aircrafts. It will be pertinent to mention here that on this day, 6th September at around 1400 hrs, we had sent a 104 to Halwara to check out the activity there and that would have warned them that something was up. Additionally, other IAF Bases had already been struck; therefore, there was no doubt that Halwara was ready to face a strike by PAF and would not be taken by surprise like other bases.

“Regarding calling off the mission, to the best of my knowledge, Base Commander had agreed and called Air Headquarters to permit cancellation of mission by them. Certainly not the Air Chief, I am sure. Rafiqui, the lion hearted, began his take off roll and during the take off one formation member had a technical failure and was forced to abort take off. That left three: Squadron Leader Rafiqui (leader), Flight Lieutenant Cecil (No 2) and Flight Lieutenant Yunus Hussain (No 3). When this formation was heading for Halwara, Squadron Leader M M Alam was returning from a mission and he called up on the radio and asked Rafiqui sahib not to proceed as he had spotted a large number of Indian fighter aircrafts in the vicinity of Halwara. But Rafiqui and his colleagues had already signed and delivered a check in the name of their nation where the amount column had said: “Up to and including my life”. Rafiqui, lovingly called RAF by his mates, carried on, knowing full well what the expected outcome was. In the air combat of three versus innumerable, Yunus was shot down, Rafiqui shot down two before his guns jammed and he handed over the lead to Cecil who shot down three and overwhelmed, disengaged and used all the skill at his command to evade the pursuing IAF fighters and landed at Sargodha with the sun setting on a day which we, the colleagues of Shaheed Squadron Leader Sarfraz Rafiqui, HJ, Shaheed Flight Lieutenant Yunus Hussain, SJ, and Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry, SJ S Bt, (RIP) will never ever forget.”

Who can forget M M Alam, the veteran of 1965 and 1971 wars, awarded Sitara-e-Jurat for rewriting the history of valiant warfare by shooting down five Indian Hawker Hunter fighters in air combat in a record under-60 seconds? Who can forget Major General Tajammal Hussain Malik, who with his men defended with pouch ammunition and repulsed the main Indian offensive on Lahore, along the G T Road, on 6th September, 1965, at Batapur Bridge, on the BRB Canal, Wagha Sector? General Tajammal Hussain Malik, in 1965, then a Lt Colonel, was CO (Commanding Officer) of Third Baloch. The battalion marched on foot to Batapur from Lahore. He ordered recoilless rifle fire on the oncoming Indian tanks, blowing them up and thus halting the Indian onslaught — all with pouch ammunition, thus mocking the Indian Commander General Chaudhry’s claim to have “chautha peg” in Lahore Gymkhana before the day was over.

Brigadier Muhammad Ajmal (retd) who was not very long ago Commanding Officer of 3rd Baloch, has this to say, “Credit goes to the Pakistan Army who not only repulsed the Indian attack but successfully defended Lahore. The entire nation in general and Lahorites in particular backed their Armed Forces against this naked aggression of Indians. Today when our third generation celebrates the “Defense of Pakistan Day” while visiting Wahga border, they notice the existence of war monuments along BRB (Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian) Link Canal and Grand Trunk Road and obliviously get curious about their history and background. One of these war monuments is located right in the middle of dual carriage GT Road on home side of BRB. While driving along Lahore Canal where it crosses the GT Road near Jallo Park and turns right towards Wagha where every evening the flag-lowering ceremony is witnessed by thousands of people from both sides of the border. This monument was built in the memory of those 39 brave soldiers of Third Baloch Regiment (Shwebos) of Pakistan Army who laid their lives while defending Lahore and denied Indians crossing over BRB Canal.”

Today, the face of war has changed. We no longer engage in hand-to-hand combat with another nation. Today, we fight wars within our borders: homegrown terrorism, foreign terrorism, terrorism promoted by foreign agencies and those they sponsor. You name it, we have it. The war our soldiers fight today is no longer defined by distinguishable lines and external borders. They fight a war where waters are murky; one often does not know who is a friend and who is an enemy. Like our soldiers, we have people like Sattar Edhi who have dedicated a lifetime to alleviating problems facing the common man. Before he set up the Edhi Trust, he had set up a free dispensary with the support of his community. Edhi Trust has bloomed to become the largest charity organization in Pakistan and the most trusted one. According to BBC News, “Edhi Foundation runs the world’s largest ambulance service and operates free nursing homes, orphanages, clinics, women’s shelters, and rehab centers for drug addicts and mentally ill individuals.” (March 15, 2001) That is not all. Recipient of many awards, according to a report of a local daily, “It has run relief operations in Africa, Middle East, the Caucasus region, eastern Europe and US where it provided aid following the New Orleans hurricane of 2005.” (November 28, 2011) One such unsung hero is Ali Rehman, a banker by profession in Karachi who invests his extra time in projects that reach out to help people in need. These include contributions of 100 packets for ‘Teach 500’ drive for children in IDP Camps in Bannu, the Christmas Toy Drive with beautifully wrapped red and gold packages for the poorer children. Started in 2013, this sharing of love has become a regular, yearly feature with the distribution of free food bags and hampers amongst the needy in Ramazan, to people carefully screened, as quantities given out with the support of increasing number of people are huge before Eid. I can recount innumerable projects undertaken by Ali.

Our soldiers are also people like Naveed Tajammal and many others who wrote with their blood defending Pakistan’s ideological boundaries. These are the people who still act as the watchdogs in media, a role slowly but surely being eroded. The media is a powerful tool today. It can make and it can destroy. They can hold the country’s cultural fabric together or bring it down brick by brick; they can act as a bridge between different sections of the society or become the schism itself.To all the soldiers of Pakistan, no matter what face you may wear, I offer my deepest respects. VOTE FROM P1 the proposal was about to be realized, it was the ECP that backed out. During the meeting of a subpanel of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, which is finalizing the legislative framework to reform the electoral system, representatives of ECP cited various reasons urging the committee to drop the proposal from the list of reforms. “There are issues of specifications … the technology is not foolproof. There are issues of manufacturing of these machines on such a large scale and storing them. We have issues of voters’ education,” one of the officials who attended the meeting told The Express Tribune. He was hesitant to share further details.

Earlier this year, the ECP had resisted the demand from some political parties to introduce biometric machines to verify the identity of voters during the local government elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The LG elections in the province are due to be held on May 30 and these will be held through traditional manual method. “I think most of the proposals in our ongoing second five year plan died after retirement of last secretary as most of these plans were his brainchild,” one of the officials remarked. Zahid Hamid, the head of the parliamentary panel, told reporters that the ECP has sought time till December to come up with some comprehensive study on EVMs. He said ECP has been showing reluctance in moving to electronic voting and its officials have mentioned various technical issues in EVMs. The committee will call the technical experts for a direct briefing before making a final decision, he added.

“If EVMs are not feasible, we will improve the existing manual system to ensure transparency” said Hamid in resignation. The ECP has since 2011-12 reviewed various electronic vote machines produced by local and international companies. While resisting the idea of using biometric machines for voter’s identification in K-P local government polls, the ECP had claimed that these machines would be useless after one elections as the commission would be introducing EVMs which have inbuilt biometric system. ECP resists granting overseas Pakistanis right to vote: Along with the introduction of EVM’s, the proposal of giving Pakistanis living overseas the right to vote also appears to have been pushed on the back burner.

Briefing the committee on difficulties of granting expats their basic right to vote, the ECP officials said in many countries of the Middle East, where a large number of Pakistanis are concentrated, voting is not allowed under local laws. However committee members observed that all the parties want to inculcate legal provisions to allow overseas Pakistanis the right to vote once legal and technical issues are addressed. Deputy Speaker apologizes for violation of code of conduct: Deputy speaker National Assembly Mutraza Javed Abbasi on Wednesday submitted a written apology to the ECP over alleged violation of election code of conduct. ECP had summoned Abbasi after receiving complaints that he was running campaigns of PML-N candidates for May 30 local government elections in K-P. Abbasi, in his written affidavit, apologized for his conduct and promised to follow ECP’s rules. However, a complainant from Abbasi’s native town Abbottabad insisted that the deputy speaker was continuing to flout the rules. “Abbasi was served notices on May 16. He continued campaigning even after that,” Fazal Haji complained. The ECP said it will not close the case and asked the complainant to provide proof to substantiate his claim.