KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Sources told KabulNow that the Taliban have arrested Nasratullah Hajizada, a former police officer of the previous Afghan government, for the second time in Kabul.
Sources close to Hajizada confirmed that he was arrested by Taliban intelligence forces around 4:00 p.m. last Wednesday (June 24) from the “Maryam High School” area of Kabul and transferred to an undisclosed location.
Nasratullah Hajizada, 35, is originally from the Nasrullahkhel village of Jabal al-Siraj district in Parwan province.
In recent years, he had been living with his wife and three children in the Loya Babajan area of Khair Khana in Kabul.
During his final assignment under the former republic, Hajizada served as the commander of a company in the Police Headquarters of Maidan Wardak province.
According to the sources, after the collapse of the republican government and the Taliban’s return to power, Hajizada left military service and began working as a shopkeeper.
However, this is the second time the Taliban have arrested him in less than five years.
Hajizada was first detained by Taliban intelligence in 2024 and imprisoned for six months.
Despite the announcement of a “general amnesty” by the Taliban’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the arrest, torture, and killing of former security personnel have continued.
Nine days ago (Friday, June 20), a former serviceman named Yaser Hosseini was killed in front of his shop in the center of Shahristan district, Daikundi province, and the body of another former serviceman, Hashmatullah Hesari, was found in Kapisa four days after he had been arrested by the Taliban.
On the same day, sources from Panjshir told KabulNow that five former military personnel—Mohammad Sohrab, Zakir, Mohammad Saleh, Nasrullah, and Pirouz—had been arrested by the Taliban in the Dara Abdullahkhel area of Dara district on accusations of possessing weapons.
According to a report published earlier by UK-based rights group Rawadari, at least 617 people were killed and 537 wounded across Afghanistan in 2025, marking a rise of more than 50% from the previous year.
The report highlighted at least 611 civilians killed or wounded in targeted, suspicious, or extrajudicial attacks, an increase of over 40% from 2024. Victims were primarily former government employees, individuals accused of links to opposition groups, protesters, tribal elders, and local community figures. Among these, 378 civilians were killed or wounded in suspicious or extrajudicial attacks, including 257 deaths.
At least 80 former government employees were specifically targeted, slightly fewer than in 2024, while 40 civilians were killed by Taliban forces on accusations of cooperating with opposition groups, down from 2024 but nearly double the number recorded in 2023. The report also documented 11 deaths in Taliban-controlled prisons following severe torture, compared with 20 cases in 2024.
The report also highlighted a sharp increase in arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances. At least 2,559 people were unlawfully detained in 2025, more than double 2024’s figure of 885 and four times higher than 2023. Detainees included 138 former government employees, 77 civil society members and human rights defenders, including seven women, and 192 individuals accused of links to opposition groups.
The continued detention and reported targeting of former members of Afghanistan’s security forces remain a source of concern for human rights organizations and UN experts. Despite the Taliban’s public commitment to a general amnesty after taking power in August 2021, documented reports from rights groups and local sources have continued to allege arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other reprisals against former military and government personnel.
