Taleban deny involvement in woman’s public execution

DHAKA: Afghan Taliban denied involvement in the killing of a woman in Afghanistan’s Parwan province and said that the woman’s family and her relatives were behind the execution.

Last week, a video went viral in which an Afghan woman accused of adultery was publicly executed amidst a crowd of dozens.

The initial reports indicated that the Taliban were behind the execution.

However, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told BBCUrdu that the woman’s family was behind her public execution, reports DawnNews.

According to him, the executed woman had been missing for quite some time and on her return she was accused of adultery.

The Taliban denied any involvement in her execution.

In the video, the woman named as Najiba was shot repeatedly in the back in front of a crowd of men in the Qol village in Parwan province, just north of the capital Kabul.

The woman was married to a Taliban member and was accused of committing adultery with a Taliban commander, the provincial government’s spokeswoman Roshna Khalid had told media.

Parwan’s governor Basir Salangi had said that the Taliban had carried out the killing.

President Hamid Karzai had also condemned the killing as un-Islamic and unforgivable, while security forces had launched a manhunt for those responsible.

Dozens of Afghan women’s rights activists took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against the killing.

BDST: 2149 HRS, JUL 12, 2012

Edited by Robab Rosan, Cultural Affairs Editor