A woman and her daughter have been shot dead and stoned to death by a group of men in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. The attack was only 300m from the governor’s office and the police chief’s office in Ghazni city, which is on a list of places to be transferred to Afghan security control.

According to the officials, all these are due to the Taliban who accused the women of moral deviation and adultery. Two men also had been arrested in connection with the murder.

Though there are eighteen districts in Ghazni, only seven are in government control and in eleven the government only exists inside the district headquarters.

Much of the region in Afghanistan continues to be fully under the control of the Taliban who are taxing people, banning girls from schools, killing and imprisoning people who work for the government. They even control all of the major roads and beat the drivers regularly. There are instances where district officials have been beheaded. The Taliban have banned mobile phones, video cameras and music apart from Taliban radio stations playing hypnotic chants. Security officials said armed men entered the house where the young widow lived with her daughter and took them out to the yard, where they were initially stoned and then shot dead.Neighbors did not help or inform the authorities on time, an official said.

Religious leaders in the city had been issuing fatwas (Islamic religious edicts) for a long time now asking people to report any one who was involved in adultery.

In October last year, a woman accused of murdering her mother-in-law was killed by the Taliban in Ghazni.

Ghazni has seen an upsurge in violence in recent years. The Government is struggling to provide security in the city.

Woman and her daughter stoned to death in Afghanistan

Report by Indrani Chowdury