The Pakistani government defended on Monday a decision to forcibly retire (retrench) an air force officer who refused to trim his beard on religious grounds, Reuters reported. Squadron Leader Mohsin Hayat Ranjha was retired in October and four of his colleagues were grounded for violating a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) dress code that allows trimmed beards, but bars long beards on the grounds they pose a safety risk. "There is no ban on any Pakistan Air Force personnel of any rank keeping a beard, but there has to be a limit to the length of a beard," Tanveer Hussain Syed, parliamentary secretary for defence, told parliament after an MMA legislator raised the issue. Oxygen masks worn by airmen flying at high altitude can malfunction as a result of beards being too bushy, Syed said, after Islamist politician Liaquat Baluch accused the air force of enforcing un-Islamic rules.
Syed said Ranjha was asked to trim his facial hair as a long beard made it difficult to fix the mask tightly on the face, which could be dangerous for both the pilot and the machine. "He not only refused to do it, in violation of the dress code of a PAF officer, but he also incited others to grow similar beards." PAF spokesman Air Commodore Sarfaraz Ahmed Khan confirmed Ranjha had been forced into early retirement and that the cases