The BBC reported on Sunday that a pregnant Afghan police officer in the provincial capital of Firozkoh was shot dead by Taliban fighters in front of her family.
The BBC said it was difficult to confirm details of the report because eyewitnesses feared retribution from the Taliban, but three anonymous sources said the officer, named as Banu Negar in local media accounts, was beaten and shot in front of her husband and children:
Relatives supplied graphic images showing blood spattered on a wall in the corner of a room and a body, the face heavily disfigured.
The family said Negar, who worked at the local prison, was eight months pregnant.
Three gunmen arrived at the house on Saturday and searched it before tying members of the family up, relatives say.
The intruders were heard speaking Arabic, a witness said.
An Afghan civil rights activist named Hassan Hakimi confirmed the story to German media on Sunday.
An armed Taliban fighter stands guard as Muslim devotees leave after Friday prayers at the Pul-e Khishti Mosque in Kabul on September 3, 2021. (Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)
“We were concerned about women who used to work for the police, at the safe house, and at the women’s affairs directorate. The Taliban has warned them many times,” Hakimi said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed denied the BBC report and claimed no Taliban operatives were involved in the killing. He suggested Negar was murdered due to “personal enmity or something else.”
“We are aware of the incident and I am confirming that the Taliban have not killed her, our investigation is ongoing,” Mujaheed said.
The BBC noted the Taliban promised to be more respectful of women than its notoriously misogynistic previous regime, but on Saturday Taliban thugs used violence to break up a women’s rights demonstration in Kabul, turning tear gas, pepper spray, and gunfire against the demonstrators as they attempted to cross a bridge to the presidential palace.
Afghan women take part in a protest march for their rights under the Taliban rule in the downtown area of Kabul on September 3, 2021. (Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)
The Taliban also offered “amnesty” and promised there would be no “revenge” taken against former employees of the elected government, but there have been numerous accounts of reprisal killings and violence, especially against former military and police officers. Mass executions of Afghan soldiers and racial minorities despised by the Taliban have been reported by former Afghan officials.
A video allegedly depicting the Taliban’s execution of a provincial police chief was posted to social media two weeks ago. In late July, Taliban fighters kidnapped a 23-year-old female prison guard, held her captive for two weeks, shot her eight times, and sent her bullet-riddled body back to her family in a coffin.