Bengaluru: “The brainless fidayeen you have been breeding are going to hell...you (have) mislead... unemployed, ignorant youth... There has to be an end to this madness.” Army veteran Major Mohommed Ali Shah didn't mince his words, as he sat down to write an open letter to terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad on February 19, in the wake of the deadly Pulwama bombing on a CRPF convoy that left 42 dead. His ancestors, he writes, were veterans of the World Wars, who chose to remain in India after Partition and "are a family of proud Indians." Born into an army family, Major Shah saw his father, former deputy chief of army, Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah who recently authored the book, The Sarkari Mussalman, fight insurgencies in Punjab, Manipur, Nagaland and J&K.
“My religion (...I am not saying yours, because you are not Muslims, and terror has no religion) is actually a very peace-loving religion.
"Today, all the good work that the Muslim community is doing is being discredited because of the wrong-doings of a few misled, uneducated, disloyal enemies of humanity." Major Shah - he's a nephew of the iconic and outspoken actor Naseeruddin Shah - keeps a low profile on social media, away from the endless, often acrimonious political banter. He talks to DC about his life and that of his family and the tainting of an entire community by a handful of violent men.
