In the recent past, Jammu and Kashmir has been giving to the country several women professional pilots—young women who have struggled hard to get their wings to fly. The latest to join the club is Kaneez Fatima who became the second lady from Ladakh to become a pilot.
Talking to The Sunday Guardian, her mother Shakeela Bano said that her daughter’s success was because of her, the mother’s, struggle as she had single-handedly brought up Kaneez and provided her with the required education. Shakeela was divorced at a young age and devoted her life to bring up her two daughters.
Shakeela said that she saw a spark in her daughter and was very keen for her education. “I got myself transferred from Ladakh to Srinagar only for the better education of my daughter. I gave her my best as a single parent, I tried my best to give her everything she needed,” she told this newspaper.
She said she was satisfied that her daughters were settled in their lives and added that the burden of her bank loan for their education was no longer occupying her mind. Her elder daughter Nahida is an engineer with HAL. She did her engineering from Srinagar.
“I took a huge loan from a bank in Srinagar for the education of my daughters. Now it is all over. I have achieved what I wanted for my daughters,” said a smiling Shakeela. She said that she could get her daughter admitted to the Government Aviation Training Institute at Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Kaneez, according to her mother, went through a six-year training course and subsequent flying experience.
According to Shakeela, another girl from Leh was so inspired by her daughter’s struggle that she too got herself enrolled for training in the same institute.
J&K came into prominence when Captain Tanvi Raina became a pilot. It was followed by other success stories of women pilots Ayesha Aziz and Iram Habib. The state got its first Muslim pilot Hina Masood, who is working with Air India now, and belongs to Ladakh. Like Hina, Kaneez has also joined Air India. Ayesha is flying fighter jets and has roots in Kashmir as her mother is from the Valley.