Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership has been silent on the reign of terror unleashed by their foot soldiers on the people across the country even as recent videos of extrajudicial killings in public prove that the uncontrolled Talibs from a rural and tribal Pashtun background are targeting people on mere suspicion or for no reason at all. In one such video, a terror suspect was killed with a rocket launcher.
In the latest instance of unchecked brutality, Saeed, a local Afghan who wanted to flee the country, was killed in broad daylight this week in the presence of local people. Due to suspension of flights in Afghanistan, he opted to leave by road. He was stopped at one of the check posts manned by the Taliban fighters. Following an exchange of words, they dragged him out of the car. In a video shared on social media, some Taliban members could be heard shouting at their comrades not to open fire. But the enraged members pumped multiple bullets into Saeed’s body, killing him on the spot. The Taliban authorities in Kabul have not yet spoken about the issue, leave alone take action against their fighters. “This was one of the few videos that got leaked. I heard a lot of such outrageous news, especially from Kandahar, on a daily basis,” said Shair Ahmad, a local Afghan.
Last week, another barbaric video was shared on social media in which Taliban fighters had publicly killed a person with a rocket launcher on suspicion that he was an Islamic State-Khurasan (IS-K) member and was involved in a terrorist attack on a mosque that had left dozens of worshippers dead. The operator of the machine was surrounded by armed soldiers and a number of spectators, while the suspect with his hands and feet tied was positioned to face the deadly weapon at a distance of about 100 metres. It hasn’t been confirmed who had ordered this extra-judicial punishment for a suspect of terrorist attack.
Following the withdrawal of international troops, violence against the ethnic Tajik and Shia Hazara communities have also escalated. With a long history of persecution, the Hazaras are at a high risk and they fear a genocide of their community by the Sunni Taliban. Deadly attacks on them in the past, however, did not force the community to leave the country. But the Taliban takeover and the treatment meted out by them to the country’s minority ethnic communities prompted a mass exodus of Hazaras to Pakistan. According to rights organisations, about 10,000 of them have arrived in the Pakistani city of Quetta, in Balochistan, where they are living in mosques and wedding halls, and renting rooms. In recent days, horrific scenes were also seen at Afghan-Pakistan border crossings of Torkham and Chaman as thousands of Afghans were attempting to exit the country. Several videos showed Taliban border security force personnel beating people with sticks, rifle butts, fists and kicks. https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2021%2F10%2F30&entity=ar02800&ts=20211030005419&uq=20210825022559&mode=text
