Taliban Expels Member After Girl He Forcibly Detained Commits Suicide

Local sources have informed Afghanistan International that the Taliban have expelled a fighter who forcibly made a young girl from Bamiyan board a military vehicle.

This fighter has now been referred to the military prosecutor. Following her release from Taliban custody, the young girl committed suicide.
The Taliban, then, delayed the burial of her body for several days.

Local sources stated that, despite the expulsion, the Taliban has not yet detained the fighter.

It has been speculated that the expulsion might have been a move to prevent potential protests.
The details surrounding the charges against this Taliban fighter remain unclear.

The incident occurred when the Taliban fighter forced the girl to sit inside his military vehicle while she was on her way home from the Punjab district Bazaar. Subsequently, Taliban intelligence officers also detained her father and brother.

Initially, the Taliban transferred the father, son, and daughter to the Punjab district centre before moving them to the Bamiyan provincial centre, where the girl was held and interrogated for at least three days.

The reasons for the Taliban fighter’s actions and the subsequent detentions of her father and brother are still unknown. Additionally, it is unclear if any formal charges were filed against them in Bamiyan.

Sources revealed that the 19-year-old girl was under severe psychological pressure after her release from detention and interrogation in Bamiyan.

The girl operated a tailoring workshop in the Punjab district's bazaar, which was shut down by the Taliban's Department of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice following her arrest.

On the day she committed suicide at her home in Tagab Barg valley, her father had gone to the Punjab district to request the Taliban's Department of Promotion of Virtue to allow her to reopen her tailoring workshop.

The sources also reported that Abdullah Sarhadi, the Taliban governor, delayed the burial of the girl's body for several days, though the reason for this remains unknown.

The girl had been educated up to the ninth grade. After the Taliban banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade, she and her sister opened a tailoring workshop in the Punjab district bazaar.

In the past three years, there have been numerous reports of young girls being detained in Kabul and other cities and regions of Afghanistan. Many of these girls have reported mistreatment and torture in Taliban detention centres.