Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Saturday praised Maryam Mujtaba, the first female pilot, a resident of Muzaffarabad, for becoming the first commercial pilot from the liberated territory. He termed her as a role model for all girls who aim to achieve excellence in challenging fields of life.
The president extended felicitations to Mujtaba after she called on him at the Aiwan-i-Sadr along with her spouse Mujtaba Rathore Aga, deputy superintendent of the AJK police.
Born to a family of Kashmiri migrants from Shopian in occupied Kashmir and settled in Muzaffarabad and Rawalpindi, Mujtaba obtained her commercial pilot license (CPL) after undergoing initial aviation training in Rawalpindi and later in a New Jersey-based flight academy, Century Air.
Recently, the PIA promoted her as a first officer by the national flag carrier. She completed the requisite flying hours on domestic routes on an ATR. Mujtaba currently operates the PIA Airbus A-320 aircraft in various countries of the world.
She has also been designated by the Special Communications Organization (SCO) as its brand ambassador. It is a subsidiary of the Pakistan army running a telecom network in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The AJK president said her success of being the first female pilot would embolden many more Kashmiri women to seek employment in this field. “You have inspired and encouraged a number of women in the liberated territory to consider aviation as a promising career,” he remarked. Mujtaba told the president that flying was her dream since childhood. Moreover, “PIA had given her wings to translate it into reality”.
‘Honored to meet AJK President Masood Khan’
Women like her who are working in the renowned institutions of Pakistan are setting a great example for all the people out there. That is, empowering a woman is not beneficial for her own self only. In fact, it is beneficial for men, society, the community, and the overall economy. Nashrah Shakir, the daughter of a traffic warden is also one of them. She is the first woman General Duty (GD) pilot in Pakistan Air Force (PAF).
We always highlight the miseries of a woman’s life. But many of the women we have in our society are believed to never give up. They try harder to move ahead in society and succeed in making their own identification. Hats off to all the women who changed the face of Pakistan!
Story Courtesy: Dawn
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