MUZAFFARABAD: While terming her as a role model for all girls aiming to achieve excellence in apparently challenging fields of life, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Saturday showered praise on Maryam Mujtaba, a resident of Muzaffarabad, on becoming the first female commercial pilot from the liberated territory.

The president extended felicitations to Ms 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, Ms Mujtaba obtained her commercial pilot licence (CPL) after undergoing initial aviation training in Rawalpindi and later in New Jersey-based flight academy, Century Air.

Recently, the PIA promoted her as ‘first officer’ on Airbus-320 after she completed the requisite flying hours on domestic routes on an ATR.

Ms Mujtaba has also been designated by the Special Communications Organisation (SCO), a subsidiary of the Pakistan army running telecom network in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, as its brand ambassador.

The AJK president said her success 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.

He said in spite of the prevailing crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the aviation industry was bound to rise again and provide livelihood to tens of hundreds of skilled persons, including women.

Ms Mujtaba told the president that flying was her dream since childhood and “PIA had given her wings to translate it into reality.”

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2021