World War Two heroine Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of Tipu Sultan, will become first British Asian woman to get a memorial in Britain.
Noor Inayat Khan, who was executed by the Nazis at Dachau, was posthumously awarded the George Cross as one of only three women agents recruited by Britain’s S
pecial Operations Executive. She was the first female radio operator to be sent to Nazi-occupied France in 1943 and used the code name Madeleine.
Noor, also awarded the Croix de Guerre by France, was arrested, tortured for information and executed by the Nazis when she was barely 30 years old.
A bust in Noor’s honour will be erected at London’s Gordon Square after University of London vice-chancellor Graeme Davies gave the go-ahead to a campaign lobbying for recognition of Noor’s extraordinary bravery. “I am personally pleased to support your campaign. Further, I see no impediment to a plinth and bust being erected in Gordon Square. The only requirement will be to raise the necessary financial support,” Sir Graeme said.
Labour MP Valerie Vaz, who tabled an early day motion on the campaign in the House of Commons, said she was delighted. “Noor Inayat Khan deserves this recognition.”
Noor, whose father was a great-great-grandson of Tipu Sultan, was born in Russia and grew up partly in Britain. She played in Gordon Square as a child and as a British secret agent lived nearby, at 4, Taviton Street.
The bust, to be sculpted by Karen Newman, will be erected at a spot in Gordon Square after the memorial trust set up in her memory manages to raise £65,000.