After serving as a secret radio operator for the British army in France during the Second World War, Noor un Nisa Inayat was called "Britain's first Muslim war heroine in Europe," by English Heritage and honoured with blue plaque.
"She was fluent in French, she knew the area, and she was a brilliant radio operator. So, she went in undercover behind enemy lines and she worked there for three months setting up crucial links and sending information back to London,"
stated Shrabani Basu, her biographer who applied for the plaque.
The Muslim heroine who was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), was born in Moscow in 1914 to an American mother and an Indian father and moved to London with her family at the dawn of the First World War.
Khan was assassinated by the Nazis in 1944 in the Dachau concentration camp. She was betrayed by a French double agent, however, Inayat did not reveal any information when arrested, even her name was kept secret. Khan was later identified as she carved her address on her bowl while imprisoned.
The plaque will mark the family home at London where she lived before leaving for France. The blue plaque is a permanent sign installed to serve as a historical marker.
