He learned the meaning of the uniform at his own dinner table.
The village of Dhok Nika in Chakwal has given another of its sons to Pakistan. Havildar Muhammad Imran Shaheed of the Pakistan Army — 5 Baloch Regiment — embraced shahadat on 7 October 2026 while on duty in Tirah Valley, in the defence of the country and the nation.
His shahadat is only days old as these words are written. The grief is fresh. The grave is fresh. And the tributes are still being written — by men who served beside him, and by a district that has lost one more of its own.
A Soldier’s Son
Havildar Muhammad Imran was the son of Subedar Ghulam Akbar — a soldier’s son who followed his father into the uniform.
That lineage matters. In the Pakistan Army, it speaks of a family where service is not a career choice but a tradition — passed from father to son along with loyalty, courage, and sacrifice. The son of a subedar grows up inside the Army’s world: the cantonments, the discipline, the stories of service told at the dinner table. When such a son puts on the uniform himself, he is not discovering a new life. He is continuing an old one.
Havildar Muhammad Imran carried his father’s name and his father’s profession into the Tirah Valley. He honoured both.
Duty in Tirah Valley
Tirah is not an easy posting. Its valleys and ridges have been contested ground in the long fight against militancy, and the soldiers stationed there live with the knowledge that the threat is never far. His duty there was the unglamorous, essential work of holding ground.
He held it to the end.
The Original Tribute
The tribute shared in the first days after his shahadat reads:
Another son of Chakwal sacrificed for the homeland. Havildar Muhammad Imran Shaheed of 5 Baloch, son of Subedar Ghulam Akbar of Dhok Nika, Chakwal, drank the cup of martyrdom while protecting the beloved homeland. Havildar Muhammad Imran was on duty in Tirah Valley, where he embraced martyrdom in the defence of the country and the nation. Chakwal is proud of its brave son.
Chakwal’s Pride
His anniversary will be observed every year on 7 October. Chakwal is proud of its brave son — a district that has sent many soldiers to the Army and now mourns one more. There is a particular honour in being the district’s “another” son: it means the well of sacrifice has not run dry. Each generation of Chakwal still answers the call.
And there is what his father’s rank tells the nation. Subedar Ghulam Akbar raised a son in the Army’s image — and then watched that son face the ultimate test of the profession. No father asks for this outcome. Every military father knows it is possible. The pride and the grief are inseparable now, and they will remain so: the pride of a father whose son became a shaheed, the grief of a father who will never see him again.
Fresh sacrifices like this one ask something specific of the living: that the tributes not stop when the news cycle moves on. The first days bring an outpouring. The years that follow require discipline — the discipline of remembrance, observed every 7th of October, for as long as the nation endures.
We salute Havildar Muhammad Imran Shaheed. May Allah raise his ranks in Jannah, grant him the highest place in Jannat-ul-Firdous, and give his family the strength to bear this loss.
A soldier’s son. A nation’s hero. Chakwal’s pride — forever honoured.
