New Delhi: Iram Habib, a 30-year-old resident of downtown Srinagar has become the first Kashmiri Muslim woman to become a pilot. She is set to join a private airline in September. Earlier, Tanvi Raina, a Kashmiri Pandit became a pilot in Air India in 2016. In April 2017, Ayesh Aziz, 21 became the valley’s first student pilot.
According to a report in Times of India, Habib’s father is a supplier of surgical instruments. Becoming a pilot was her childhood ambition and she gave up a short-term goal of getting a doctorate degree in forestry to become a pilot. Undergoing training in Delhi for getting a commercial pilot license, Habib told Times of India that she completed her basic training from Miami in the US in 2016. “Everyone was surprised to find that I am a Kashmiri Muslim doing flying but I went ahead to achieve my goal,” the report quoted her as saying.
According to a report in Tribune, it took her “six years to convince her parents” to allow her to pursue a career in flying. She completed her bachelors from Dehradun and was pursuing Ph.D. in forestry when she decided to pursue her long-cherished dream of becoming a pilot. According to a report in Siasat Daily, she searched for the training programme on her own. The report cited that she comes from a conservative Muslim family and convincing her parents was a tough task.
A report in Navbharat Times quoted Habib as saying, “It is a matter of coincidence that over 50 Kashmiri women are undergoing pilot training to join various domestic as well as international airlines.”
Prasanta Patnaik