Daily Times

The exceptionally bold and brave, full of passion and patriotism the 1965 war hero Mohammad Mehmood Alam commonly known as MM Alam’s seventh death anniversary is being observed today across the country.

MM Alam is considered as country’ s national hero on account of his incredible performance during 1965 Pak-India war when he was spotted at Sargodha and vigorously set a world record of shooting down five Indian aircrafts in less than a minute and the remaining four within thirty seconds making nine in total destruction.

During this war, he was involved in various dogfights while flying his F-86 Sabre fighter. He downed nine Indian Hawker Hunter fighters in the aerial fighting and damaged two others.

He was awarded Sitara-e-Juraat twice for his services to the PAF. Alam, born on July 6, 1935, in a well-educated family of Calcutta, British India, was the eldest of 11 siblings.

He was brought up in Bengal, India after Indo-Pak separation in 1947 his family migrated to East Pakistan. In 1982, Alam retired from PAF as an air commodore and took up residence in Karachi.

Muhammad Mahmood Alam died in Karachi on 18 March 2013 at the age of seventy-seven years. He was battling with respiratory problems during the last months of his life.