Mohammad Asghar Khan (17 January 1921 – 5 January 2018), known as Night Flier, held the distinction of being the first native and second Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Air Force from 1957 to 1965. He has been described as the Father of the Pakistan Air Force. He was also the ninth president of the Pakistan Football Federation from 1961 to 1965, president of the Pakistan International Airlines from 1965 to 1968, a politician, and author.
Born in Jammu, Khan graduated with distinction from the Indian Military Academy and was commissioned into the British Indian Army in 1940. With the onset of World War II, the Royal Indian Air Force asked for volunteers and he transferred in December of that year. Stationed in Hyderabad in 1942, he was ordered by the martial law administrator of Sindh to attack a convoy of Hurs traveling with Pir of Pagaro VI. Leading three aircraft, Khan refused to attacks them upon seeing that the convoy consisted of unarmed civilians and returned to base. Threatened with a court-martial, Khan replied, "I cannot follow an unlawful command."
Flight Lieutenant Asghar Khan as commander 'B' Flight—No. 9 Sqn, led operations in the Burma Campaign and became the commander of the squadron in 1945. After the war, he considered resigning to participate in the Indonesian revolution but was advised by Jinnah to serve Pakistan's future air force. In 1946, he became the first Indian subcontinent pilot to fly a fighter jet, the Gloster Meteor III while attending the Day Fighter Leaders School at RAF West Raynham. After the Partition of British India, he opted for the Royal Pakistan Air Force and planned to move to Lahore with his wife in 1947. Their home in the Ambala cantonment was reassigned to Wing Commander Nair, who barred them from traveling by train. Though Khan refused to seek help, Nair informed Perry-Keene, the Air Officer Commanding of the RPAF, who arranged a flight to Peshawar, saving their lives, as all passengers on their intended train were killed.
Promoted to Wing Commander, Khan was given the task of establishing the RPAF Flying Training School in Risalpur. In April 1948, Governor General of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, visited the school and upgraded it to the status of a college.
At the age of 36 in 1957, Khan became the youngest Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Air Force and the youngest Air Vice Marshal in the world. At 37, he became the youngest Air Marshal. He modernised the Air Force by founding the Fighter Leader's School, Mauripur and PAF Staff College, inducting advanced aircraft such as the F-86 Sabre, B-57 Canberra, and the F-104 Starfighter. He also established several air stations, wings, squadrons, and implemented operational reforms. Rejecting a widespread West Pakistani notion that Bengalis were unfit for military service, he abolished height measurements from recruitment criteria. Shortly before the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, he switched offices with his successor, Air Marshal Nur Khan, and became the head of Pakistan International Airlines. Their tenures are considered the airline's golden age.
Criticising the regime of President Ayub Khan, Asghar Khan entered politics alongside Syed Mahbub Murshed in 1968 after the arrest of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and spearheaded protests for his release. In 1970, he founded the Tehreek-e-Istiqlal. Following the commencement of Operation Searchlight in 1971, he led protests across East and West Pakistan, demanding the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leveraging the popularity he had earned as Air Chief and repeatedly advocated for the rights of Bengalis. He opposed the Bengali genocide and demanded that President Yahya Khan be put on trial for his role. By the mid-1970s, Asghar Khan was the main figure behind the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Elected to the National Assembly from Abbottabad and Karachi in the 1977 elections, Khan was arrested by Prime Minister Bhutto under martial law during a crackdown on nationwide protests against widely alleged electoral rigging. While imprisoned, he read in a newspaper that a Pakistan Army major had killed a civilian who had made a V sign toward the officer. In response, Khan wrote a letter urging military officers to distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders. While providing an excerpt from his letter, The Washington Post said Khan was "probably the most popular of the nine Alliance party leaders".
After negotiations between the opposition and Bhutto's government failed, General Zia-ul-Haq launched a coup d'état in July 1977 and placed Khan under house arrest, where he remained until 1984. During this time, Amnesty International recognised him as a prisoner of conscience. Although Khan had earlier led the PNA movement against Bhutto who was executed in 1979, he publicly demanded Bhutto's release in a letter to Zia. In the letter, he also criticised the military regime for failing to hold promised elections within 90 days of the coup.
Despite his stand against authoritarianism, Khan's political influence remained limited in the early 1990s. He filed a human rights petition in 1996 challenging the results of the 1990 elections, which came to be known as the Asghar Khan case. The election was marred by widespread rigging, with Nawaz Sharif securing victory through an election cell created by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Funds from the country's foreign exchange reserves were illegally redirected to Sharif by the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence, who manipulated the election by bribing politicians. In 2012, Generals Aslam Beg, Asad Durrani, Hamid Gul, and banker Yunus Habib publicly admitted their involvement in influencing the election results. The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled in Khan's favour, and ordered the government to take action against those involved. Despite this, no one has faced any repercussions and the case remains largely forgotten. In 2011, Khan merged his party with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. At the age of 96, he died from cardiac arrest in early 2018.
Early life
Born on 17 January 1921 in Jammu to an Afridi family, Mohammad Asghar Khan was the son of Brigadier Rehmatullah Khan and had 12 siblings. In 1855, Asghar's grandfather Sardar Samad Khan moved from Tirah Valley and settled in Battal-Ballian, near Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir, where he lived until his death in 1903. Asghar's uncle, Sardar Samundar Khan, was a general in the army of Maharaja Hari Singh.
In 1933, Khan enrolled at the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun. After six years at the college, he qualified to take the entrance examination for the Indian Military Academy (IMA) and was selected for training in 1939.
While living in Srinagar, Khan underwent the required medical examination at the Combined Military Hospital in Sialkot before joining the IMA. He was initially informed that albumin detected in his urine indicated a life-threatening condition and that he had only a few months to live. Further examination determined that it was harmless functional albumin, and he was declared medically fit to join the academy.
He aspired to become a fighter pilot in the Royal Indian Air Force and sought a transfer shortly before the outbreak of World War II in 1939. However, he was unable to train at RAF College Cranwell after admissions for Indian cadets were suspended.
Personal life Asghar Khan married Amina Shamsie in November 1946, while serving as the Chief Flying Instructor at RIAF Station Ambala. She was the sister of Syed Saleem Shamsie, the husband of Muneeza Shamsie.
Asghar and Amina had two daughters, Nasreen and Shereen, and two sons, Ali and Cambridge-educated Professor Omar Asghar Khan, who died under mysterious circumstances two months before the 2002 Pakistani general election, during the regime of General Musharraf.
After Omar's mysterious death, Ardeshir Cowasjee wrote in Dawn that the "indefatigable old warrior of our skies" is "sorely wounded" by the loss of his son. He described Asghar Khan as "an honest man of moderate means" who "genuinely wished to do good" but believed there was "no way, no way at all" he could succeed in Pakistan's political environment, given "the mindset of the majority."
During his tenure as chief of the Air Force, a PAF officer approached his father, Rehmatullah Khan, seeking a recommendation for a preferred posting. Rehmatullah contacted President Ayub Khan to request that Asghar Khan assist the officer. Ayub Khan complied, but Asghar Khan declined the request. Following this incident, Asghar severed communication with his father for an extended period. Columnist Shahzad Chaudhry from The Express Tribune, reflected on his principled refusal and wrote, "They don't make them like that anymore".
Asghar Khan was fluent in Pashto, Urdu, and English, though he spoke Punjabi only occasionally.
Military career British Indian Army
After 1½ years of training at the Indian Military Academy, Khan graduated with distinction and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the 9th Deccan Horse of the British Indian Army on 3 January 1940.
Royal Indian Air Force and World War II service
After the outbreak of World War II, the Royal Indian Air Force began inducting personnel again and in pursuit of his dream, Khan was seconded to the air force on 22 December 1940. He began his training at the Initial Training Wing at Walton in Lahore, then trained at the No. 1 EFTS, Begumpet for a three month course on the Tiger Moth, mastering the aircraft and then the Hawker Audax in Ambala.
In December 1941, Khan transferred to No. 3 Sqn stationed in Peshawar and became a pilot on Wapiti and Hawker Hart aircraft. The squadron later moved to Kohat.
Stationed in Hyderabad, Sindh in 1942, Asghar Khan's commanding officer was Flight Lieutenant Om Prakash Mehra. Khan was ordered by Major General Richardson, the Martial Law Administrator of Sindh, to destroy a convoy of Hurs which was proceeding East with Pir of Pagaro VI. Mehra ordered Khan to lead the flight, with Richardson telling them that this was an important mission and he would wait at the airbase for the return of Khan and his pilots. After taking off with four aircraft, Khan came across the convoy but upon seeing them, noticed that they were unarmed men, women, and children. He refused to carry out the order and returned to base without firing a single shot, telling an annoyed Richardson, who threatened him with a court-martial, "I cannot follow an unlawful command".
From 13 December 1944 to 27 August 1945, Flight Lieutenant Asghar Khan was Flight Commander 'B' Flight, No. 9 Sqn, stationed in Burma during World War II and fought in the Burma Campaign leading aerial operations against Japanese forces. He engaged in ground strikes in the Arakan flying aircraft such as the Hurricane IIC, Spitfire Mk VIII, and Spitfire Mk XIV. Afterwards, he participated in peacetime training at Delhi and Ranchi. In 2015, retired Group Captain Micky Blake recalled his time with Khan when he was Flight Commander. Blake remembered Khan challenging an American squadron of lightning fighters who mocked their Hurricanes as "peashooters". In a dogfight over the base, Khan, despite being outnumbered two to one, "skillfully got on their tails", leaving the USAF pilots "much more subdued than when they took off!"
When his former squadron mate Dalip Singh Majithia fell ill in late February 1945, Flt Lt Asghar Khan, flew him to a hospital in Calcutta in a Harvard aircraft.