Taliban hang dead body from crane in main square of Afghanistan’s Herat city: Report | World News

Despite repeated assurances of respecting human rights, the Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane in the main square of Afghanistan’s Herat city, The Associated Press reported on Saturday citing a witness. The report suggests that the Sunni Pashtun fighters brought four bodies to the main square of Afghanistan’s third-largest city and moved three of them to other squares for displaying in public.

After bringing the body to the main square, the Taliban announced that the four were caught in a kidnapping attempt and killed by police, according to the witness named Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi. The Taliban are yet to make any official announcement related to the public display of killings. However, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who was responsible for the enforcing of Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Sharia law during their previous rule, said that they will carry out executions and amputations again, reported AP.

The Islamists fundamentalists have reestablished the dreaded ‘Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’ which ordered some of the most brutal killings from 1996-2001. It was notorious for enforcing the stricter interpretation of Sharia law and punishing the violators in a manner contradictory to international laws on human rights.

A Taliban official recently told the New York Post that the new regime will punish the violators as per the “Islamic rules”. Explaining the provision for punishment, Mohammad Yusuf, who claims to be responsible for the “central zone” of Afghanistan, said that a person intentionally committing murder will be killed but there might be other kinds of punishment if the murder is not intentional.

Yusuf said that the hands of thieves would be cut off, while those involved in “illegal intercourse” will be stoned, reported New York Post. Flogging, stoning, amputating even publicly executing people were common in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule from 1996-2001. While the Islamist hardliners are attempting to project a different face, the international community is closely monitoring the reports of killings and abuses since the Taliban.

(With inputs from agencies)