Zafar Muhammad Khan

Zafar Muhammad Khan was a Pakistani naval captain who was born in Karachi, Sindh, in the 1930s. He graduated from the University of Karachi with a degree in electrical engineering and joined the Pakistan Navy in 1956. He was sent to the Britannia Royal Naval College in the United Kingdom for training and became a submarine officer. He served in various submarines and naval vessels and participated in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. He was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat for his role in Operation Dwarka, a naval raid on the Indian coastal town of Dwarka. He also taught electrical engineering at the Pakistan Navy Engineering College. He was promoted to commander in 1971 and became the commanding officer of PNS Ghazi, the first and only submarine of the Pakistan Navy at that time. He was assigned to a covert mission codenamed Operation Falcon, which involved laying mines in the Bay of Bengal to block the Indian Navy from entering East Pakistan. He also had orders to sink the Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which was reportedly stationed near the Andaman Islands. However, the Vikrant had moved to a different location and the Ghazi failed to locate it. On the night of 3-4 December 1971, the Ghazi was detected by the Indian Navy near Visakhapatnam and was attacked by depth charges. The Ghazi sank with all 93 crew members on board, including Commander Khan. He was 37 years old. He was posthumously awarded the Hilal-i-Jur'at, the second-highest military award of Pakistan, for his courage and sacrifice. He is regarded as one of the national heroes of Pakistan and a martyr of the Pakistan Navy.