Pakistan’s first female cadet at a ceremony to mark the 130th birth anniversary of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Karachi on Monday. (AFP)

Karachi, Dec. 25 (AP): Eight female cadets from the Pakistan army’s elite training academy today became the first female honour guards at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder.

State-run television showed the female contingent, clad in khaki cadet slacks, some wielding swords and others holding guns, marching to military tunes with their male colleagues in a ceremony at the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, “the father of the nation”, in the southern city of Karachi.

In November, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul, in the country’s northwest, opened its doors to women. In March, women also broke into the all-male air force when it inducted four women pilots.

Forty-one women joined the army academy to undergo rigorous six months of military training along with men before being inducted as officers in various branches of the army.

President Pervez Musharraf, who attended ceremonies in Karachi marking the 130th birth anniversary of Jinnah, has been promoting the role of women in Pakistan’s male-dominated society. Musharraf, who laid flowers at the mausoleum, praised the female cadets, who are to graduate next April. “I am really impressed by the girls,” Musharraf said. “This is the future of Pakistan.”

Pakistan’s first Sikh cadet Hercham Singh at the ceremony. (AFP)

Previously, women had only served in the army’s medical corps without being trained at the academy. But the 41 female cadets at PMA will join the army as non-combat officers in the communication, engineering, legal and education branches.

In Pakistan, abuses and violence against women are common. Female literacy is only 35 per cent, compared with 62 per cent for men.

Revenge attack

Gunmen opened fire on a Sunni funeral in Pakistan yesterday, killing four people in what appeared to be a sectarian revenge attack.

The attack in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan came a day after a Shia professor was shot dead. His killing sparked violence protests by minority Shias who ransacked some shops and blocked roads with burning tyres.

“Mourners were returning from the professor’s funeral when armed men opened fire on the funeral of a Sunni that was taking place nearby,” senior police officer Hammad Abid said.

Four people were killed and eight wounded, he said.