Local sources in northeastern Badakhshan province reported that members of the Taliban killed a former police officer overnight in the province’s Tishkan district.
The ex-officer, identified as Amanatullah Sadeqi, was abducted by a group of Taliban men while he was sleeping on the roof of his home in the district on Sunday night, sources stated.
Sadeqi’s body was found in a cave the next morning, sources said, indicating that he was choked to death by the Taliban.
The Taliban police command in the district told Sadeqi’s family that he died by “falling”, something the family denies, sources cited.
Following the Taliban’s return to power, tens of thousands of former soldiers who worked with international troops were left unemployed under the harsh rule of the Taliban, the same group they had fought against for two decades.
Amanatullah Sadeqi was working as a farmer in Tiskhan following the collapse of the former republic government.
The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says that the Taliban continue to engage in abuse, enforced disappearances, and revenge killings of ex-officials and soldiers despite the group’s general amnesty.
In a report last year, UNAMA documented at least 800 cases of human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and torture and ill-treatment against the former army, police, and intelligence forces between August 15, 2021, and June 2023.
“In most instances, individuals were detained by de facto security forces, often briefly, before being killed,” the report said. “Some were taken to detention facilities and killed while in custody, others were taken to unknown locations and killed, their bodies either dumped or handed over to family members.”
The Taliban have repeatedly dismissed such reports as “inaccurate” and “propaganda”.
