One person stood out among the latest batch of cadets that graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's first Sikh army officer Harcharan Singh.
ISLAMABAD: One person stood out among the latest batch of smartly turned out cadets that graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's first Sikh army officer Harcharan Singh.
Singh, who was conspicuous due to his green turban and beard, marched in step with his fellow cadets before the army's vice chief, Lt Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, during the passing out parade on Saturday.
Once the official ceremony was over, the 21-year-old officer joined his relatives and friends from Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, in a spirited 'bhangra' dance to the beat of drums.
He also became emotional on meeting his parents after the parade.
"It is a matter of great privilege and an honour for me that today I am standing in front of you in the khaki uniform. I have been given a great responsibility," Singh said at the academy at Abbottabad in the North West Frontier Province, about 120 km from Islamabad.
"With the passage of time, I will prove that we (Sikhs) are more loyal than our Muslim brothers. I thank the Pakistan army that I have been given this chance," said the cadet who first came to the limelight in 2005 when he became the first member of Pakistan's minority Sikh community to be recruited by the army.
Born in 1986 in Nankana Sahib, Singh was part of the Pakistan Military Academy's 116th Long Course.
In December last year, Singh joined the first group of Pakistani women cadets to be posted for guard duties at the mausoleum of the country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi.
During a visit to the mausoleum at that time, President Pervez Musharraf, who is also the army chief, had said more Sikhs would be recruited in the force in future.
As Singh is the eldest of her four sons and a daughter, his mother was initially hesitant to send him for military training. "But now she is proud of me," he had said in an interview last year.
Singh, whose family migrated to the Northern Areas at the time of partition and shifted to Nankana Sahib in the 1970s, was skeptical about his chance when he appeared for the Inter Services Selection Board (ISSB) examination in 2005 as no Sikh or Hindu had been selected for the Pakistan Army till then.
He had even prepared to join a bachelor's course in architecture at the National College of Arts in the event of failing to get into the army.
Months after Singh's selection, the Pakistan Army recruited a Hindu for the first time when Danesh, who hails from Tharparker district in Sindh bordering Rajasthan, joined the force.
Non-Muslim minorities comprise about three per cent of Pakistan's population of 160 million.
The overall representation of the minorities in the armed forces is low though many Christians have served as officers and soldiers.
Pakistan has a small community of Sikhs spread across Punjab and the North West Frontier Province.
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