Afghan police rescue woman from Taleban stoning

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan: Police in a remote northern Afghan village rescued a woman from being stoned to death after she was condemned by the Taleban for allegedly cheating on her husband, officials said Tuesday.
Taleban militants, who often run informal justice systems in rural Afghanistan, handed down the death penalty on the woman after her husband accused her of having an affair.
“When police rescued her, she was locked in a room in a compound that was used as a Taleban base,” Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, police spokesman for Kunduz province, told AFP.
He said the rescue operation in the village, a militant stronghold, was launched after the woman’s relatives told police the Taleban had sentenced her to death.
The husband, a supporter of the Islamic insurgent group, handed her over to the militants on Friday.
The incident happened in Dasht-i-Archi district of Kunduz, a province where the Taleban have had an active presence in recent years after they were ousted from power nationally in 2001.
“The Taleban were preparing to stone her when the police reached the compound. The Taleban ran away and the woman was rescued. She’s now in police protective custody,” Hussaini said.
Enayatullah Khaleeq, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial administration, confirmed the rescue and give a similar account.
“Her husband was with the Taleban. He had divorced his wife and, perhaps to justify this, he accused her of cheating on him and wanted to get her killed by the Taleban.
“We are investigating this,” Khaleeq told AFP.
The Taleban, the biggest militant group behind a 12-year insurgency in Afghanistan, implemented a harsh version of Sharia law during their rule of Kabul between 1996 and 2001, stoning women to death and chopping off thieves’ hands.
In July last year a 21-year-old woman was stoned to death in a Taleban-controlled village just 60 kilometers north of Kabul, sparking international condemnation.