Taliban Writes Letter to Teen

LETTER// A former Pakistan Air Force member-turned Taliban commander has curiously invoked Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus and Lord Buddha in a letter to teen activist Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head by his outfit, asking her to return home and use her pen for Islam. Adnan Rasheed, who was sentenced to death for attempting to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf in 2003, wrote the over 2,000- word letter to Malala, days after she said the Taliban attack had not diminished her determination to speak up for the right to education of every child. “I wish the compassion you learnt from Prophet Muhammad should be learnt by Pakistan Army so they could stop shedding of Muslim blood... I wish, the compassion you learnt from Prophet Jesus should be learnt by the US and NATO... I wish the same for followers of Buddha... and I wish the same for Indian Army to follow Gandhiji,” Rasheed wrote. Malala was returning home from school in Pakistan’s north-western Swat district on October 9, 2012, when gunmen stopped her bus and shot her in the head and the chest.