On Saturday, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan praised Maryam Mujtaba, a Muzaffarabad resident, for becoming the first female commercial pilot from the freed territory, calling her a role model for all females aspiring to attain greatness in seemingly difficult sectors of life.
The president congratulated Ms Mujtaba after she and her husband Mujtaba Rathore Aga, deputy superintendent of the AJK police, visited him at the Aiwan-i-Sadr.
Ms Mujtaba was born to a family of Kashmiri migrants from Shopian in occupied Kashmir who moved in Muzaffarabad and Rawalpindi. She received her commercial pilot license (CPL) after completing initial aviation training in Rawalpindi and afterwards at Century Air in New Jersey.
After completing the required flying hours on internal routes on an ATR, she was recently promoted to ‘first officer’ on an Airbus-320 by the PIA.
Ms Mujtaba has also been named as a brand ambassador by the Special Communications Organization (SCO), a Pakistan army company that operates a communication network in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
According to the president of the AJK, her accomplishment will inspire many more Kashmiri women to pursue careers in this profession.
He remarked, “You have inspired and encouraged a number of women in the freed territory to explore aviation as a viable vocation.”
Despite the current difficulty in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak, he predicted that the aviation industry will rebound and create jobs for tens of thousands of people, including women.
