Afghan and international media reported last week that in a barbaric act in the relatively peaceful Nimroz province of western Afghanistan, the Taliban publicly executed a teen-aged girl and a young boy on the charge of eloping.
The extrajudicial killing on broad daylight was described as an eye-opening precedence of Taliban's vigilante justice, reminding people of their tyrannical reign prior to their collapse in the late 2001: During that period, the dreaded militia had been awarding public punishments to alleged offenders in sport stadiums.
People, witness to Taliban's atrocious reign, remind that the seminary students had then converted the Kabul Sport Stadium into a slaughter ground, where the militants executed, flogged and amputated alleged criminals on every Friday -- the Muslim weekly off-day.
Ghulam Dastgir Azad, the Governor of Nimroz province, in chat with media, confirmed that the Taliban, after issuing a short verdict, publicly executed the couple outside a mosque in Khashroddistrict, last week.
The gruesome incident took place just a day after the seminary student militia gunned down a female legislator, Setara Achekzai, in Kandahar, Taliban's birthplace in south Afghanistan, where over2,500 Canadian troops are deployed as part of international efforts to stabilize security in the country.
This is not the first time that Taliban fighters have awarded capital punishment and publicly implemented it. The militants had more than once practiced their harsh law in their hotbed southern Helmand and neighboring provinces where they are active over the past few years.
The execution of the couple, on charges of eloping, which even Islamic clerics have condemned as un-Islamic, sent shockwaves across Afghanistan, where over 70,000-strong U.S.-led forces have been stationed with thousands of them performing security duties in the western parts of the country.
The implementation of death penalty and enforcement of Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islamic injunctions in the relatively peaceful Nimroz province speaks volumes of the escalation of Taliban's influence in the far southern central Asian state.
It is for the first time since their ousting in 2001 that the scattered militants have carried out public execution in western Afghanistan.
A France-based non-government organization, SENLIS had, in a report issued several months ago, stated that the Taliban controls over 70 percent of Afghanistan -- a figure hard to digest.
For its part, Afghan officials said that only three districts of the country are out of its control.
However, people in the southern parts of the country say that militia have presence in several districts, particularly during night time.
Local villagers said that in daytime the Taliban were seen busy working on farm lands or in gardens while at night, they come out with anti-government activities.
In several areas in the south, the militants, according to locals, have even established their courts, settling the disputes of people.
Furthermore, the Taliban militants have influence in provinces such as Ghazni, Logar and Wardak, which are close to the capital Kabul -- occasionally threatening and targeting government functionaries.
Growing Taliban militancy and their escalating influence in provinces other than their traditional stronghold, is certainly a challenge for the NATO -- the only world level military alliance that has shouldered the mission to bring peace in Afghanistan.
Taliban activists carry out these activities in the face of announcement by the United States and its NATO allies to send additional 29,000 troops to Afghanistan.
However, the Afghan people believe that only raising the number of foreign soldiers would not help bring stability in their country until and unless the troops take serious steps against the militants -- dislodging and flushing them out from their hideouts.
The people of Afghanistan would continue to suffer at the hands of Taliban and their vigilante judicial system unless the NATO, in harmony with the Afghan government and Afghan people, annihilate the hardliners among the Taliban and win over the hearts and minds of the moderate ones.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article