LAHORE: “My father kept terrorists engaged single-handedly for sometime till he ran out of bullets,” said Nabil, the elder son of Airport Security Force official Muhammad Sarwar who sacrificed his life in the Karachi airport attack.

Sub-Inspector Sarwar was deployed at the Terminal-I of the Jinnah International Airport when the heavily armed militants attacked it on Sunday.

“We are told by our father’s colleagues that he fought bravely. He engaged the terrorists at the Terminal-I for sometime successfully, and shot a couple of them dead before he was hit. Had he not run out of bullets he might have engaged more terrorists,” Nabil regretted while talking to Dawn here on Monday.

Even Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has praised Sarwar and two other ASF personnel who engaged the terrorists at terminal entrance till more security personnel reached there.

“My father spoke to us on Sunday afternoon. We had no idea that we were talking to him for the last time,” Nabil said and hastened to add that he and his other family members were not mourning his death as he was a Shaheed (martyr).

“My father is a Shaheed and as long as Pakistan has security personnel like my father this country has no threat from its enemies,” he said.

Sarwar, a resident of Gulshan-i-Ahbab Society on Ferozpur Road, Lahore, was transferred to Karachi last June. He left behind a widow, four sons and a daughter.

“We are proud of our father as he will be remembered as a brave man of this soil who lost his life to foil a major attack,” his younger son Aneel said, adding his father always advised them (his sons) to earn their livelihood honestly.

“My father was an honest official and he wanted us to be like him,” he said.

Sarwar will be laid to rest at Gulshan-i-Ahbab Society on Tuesday. — Zulqernain Tahir

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2014