PESHAWAR: Afghan media on Friday reported that four women activists were “mysteriously” killed in Afghanistan’s Mazar-e-Sharif after anti-Taliban protest.
The Afghan website Hasht-e-Sabah quoted local sources as saying that their bodies were dumped in the suburban Khalid bin Waleed Township after being gunned down on Thursday night by unknown assailants.
One of the victims was identified as 30-year-old Forouzan Safi, a lecturer at a private university in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Mohammad Sabir Batoor, the husband of slain Safi alleged that his wife has been targeted and killed along with three other women workers on Wednesday afternoon after they staged anti-Taliban protests. Batoor has already fled Iran due to “security threats”.
According to Safi’s husband, his wife received a phone call posing as human rights activists. “The phone caller claimed that she belongs to a human right organisation and help the social workers in their escape from the Taliban controlled Afghanistan,” Batoor told the Afghan media.
“My wife left home midnight with her academic credentials and other documents. She said that she was going abroad secretly with the help of a human rights organisation,” he added. Batoor further said that her family members searched her throughout the district. “They have also taken her phone, jewelery, educational certificates and travel documents,” Batoor said.
Local Taliban officials in Mazar-e-Sharif have not yet commented on the killing of female workers. According to the family, they found the bullet riddled body of Forouzan Safi at the Central Hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif. The hosptial said that unidentified persons had brought the dead bodies of the female social workers to the hospital. According to the victim’s family, they informed the local Taliban authorities about the killings but did not receive any response.
The other three women have not yet been identified and local Taliban officials have not yet commented on the incident.