Dear Shri Antony,
                A press report says that in response to an application under RTI Act the Ministry of Defence through the PRO Col. Pradeep Bisht has stated that the Ministry has no statistics about the number of Muslims. This is surprising because the prescribed recruitment form has a column relating to religion and every member of the Armed Forces carries a tag giving his religion.
You may kindly recall that the Army had refused data on Muslim presence in the Army to the Sachar Committee while the Air Force and the Navy had readily supplied the information. Later, the refusal was defended in the Parliament by the then Defence Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee on specious grounds.
It is well known that the proportion of Muslims at the Jawan level is very low, of the order of 2-3%. This is because of the systematic policy of deprivation and preference to the service areas of various religion, caste and ethnic / regional units. It is a moot question whether the existing religious, castes, and ethnic / regional units should be reorganized on territorial basis or more religious, caste, ethnic / regional units should be established.
I request you to check whether the recruitment form prescribed for the Jawans as well as for JCO’s and C.O’s, includes a religious column.

With kind regards