Wings of Duty — Page 61
61 Alamgir, on the banks of the River Jehlum. Whenever I flew between Lahore and Rawalpindi on official work, I would fly over the centre and buzz them. The Furqan Battalion was led by Colonel Muhammad Hayat Qaisrani. They were on the front line during the Kashmir War and not only defended their territory with great determination, but performed as well as any battalion of the Pakistan Army. On one occasion, Huzoor flew with me in the Fox Moth from Sialkot to Lahore. Accompanying him were his wife Syeda Mehr Apa and his daughter Sahibzadi Amtul Basit. For technical reasons, Walton Airport was closed that day and we landed in the Lahore Cantonment airport which back then was an Air Force base where civilian craft were not allowed to land. On another occasion, I was supposed to fly to Quetta in Balochistan, but due to floods in Sindh and roads being blocked, I had to leave the plane in Jacobabad in Sindh for technical reasons. In 1950, Huzoor decided to sell both of the community’s planes. Flying the planes in turn, I took them to Karachi. The community in Karachi tried to sell the planes according to Huzoor’s instructions, but could not find any buyers. In addition, the cost of parking them and maintaining their flight worthiness