Remembrance Day

Does anyone remember Remembrance Day which used to be commemorated in our pre-Partitioned educational institutions, government offices and by the armed forces of the British commonwealth countries by observing a silence for two minutes at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11:11:11) each year to pay homage to the dead of World War I (1914-1918)? Though the hostilities formally ended with the signing of the armistice between Germany and the Allieds yet, the First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Also little do we know of Sepoy Khuda Dad Khan (later Subedar) hailing from Dist Chakwal, Pakistan, who was the first ever Muslim to be awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest British Army award for gallantry in war, equivalent to our Nishan e Haider – during the First World War on October 31, 1914. A Commemorative Stone was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum, UK in his honour by Lord Ahmed the UK communities minister.

Col (r) Riaz Jafri

Rawalpindi