Sqn Ldr Muniruddin Ahmed was born on 27 September 1927 at Gurdaspur, India. Munir joined PAF College, Risalpur in 1949 and graduated on 22 Dec 1955 with 26 GD (P) Course. After graduation, he was posted to elite No 14 Sqn and became the top-notch fighter pilot in a very short time. Later, he was posted to No 11 Sqn where he stayed for a year. He also had short stints of one year each in No 19 and No 5 Sqn of PAF.
Sqn Ldr Munir was posted at Sargodha as the Wing Ops Officer during the 1965 War.From Sep 4-11, he took part in ten operational missions, which included close support especially in Chamb sector, destroying a number of tanks and armoured vehicles. He participated in combat missions nearly every day.
On 11 Sep 1965, Sqn Ldr Muniruddin Ahmed volunteered for the dangerous strike mission to destroy formidable Amritsar Radar station. Munir considered the destruction of the Amritsar radar as personal challenge and being the wing ops officer devised various tactics to neutralise this threat. As Munir dived and delivered the lethal blow from his guns, all the enemy gunners seemed to focus their artillery on him. Munir’s aircraft shuddered as a barrage of shells burst nearby; single-mindedly, he moved on through the web of fire. As he pulled up after the attack, an enemy ack-ack shell hit Munir’s Sabre. “I am hit,” he told the leader in a cool and calm voice; and then the R/T went silent.
He was posthumously awarded SJ by the Government of Pakistan. The citation read, “During the war, a high-powered, heavily defended radar station in Amritsar was eventually rendered infective after several determined missions by PAF fighters. In all these missions, Sqn Ldr Munir Ahmed unhesitatingly volunteered to fly and without regard for his personal safety exposed himself within the firing zone of enemy guns for long periods in attempts to locate and destroy the targets.
In the final successful attack on Sep 11, he made the supreme sacrifice when his aircraft was fatally hit by the heavy concentration of ack-ack guns.
Before his last sortie, Sqn Ldr Munir flew eight combat missions by persistently appealing to his colleagues to temporarily relieve him of his ground duties as Wing Operations Officer. In one of these missions, on his own initiative, he led his formation into Indian territory to seek out enemy fighters and shot down an IAF Gnat on Sep 10.”
