Taliban Kills Afghanistan Engineer for Criticism on Facebook

Engineer Naved Jan in Kandahar wrote a Facebook post criticising the Taliban for not paying teachers their salaries.

The Taliban killed Engineer Naveed Jan on Monday (November 29) in Kandahar for criticising the Taliban in a Facebook post. Naveed had criticised the Taliban for not paying teachers their salaries. Naveed’s family confirmed the killing.

In a social media post, journalist Bashir Ahmad Gwakh wrote, “Killed for a Facebook Post: Engineer Naveed Jan in Kandahar criticised the Taliban on Facebook for not paying teachers their salary. Taliban took and killed him during interrogation, his brother says. Similar killings have been happening in Nangarhar as well.”

The Taliban has been killing dissenters and critics since it captured power in Kabul on August 15. Earlier, the Taliban had executed a female police officer, Banu Negar, at her home in Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province, on September 4. She was killed in a door-to-door execution carried out by the Taliban.  She was eight months pregnant. 

Although the Taliban has announced an amnesty for the people who had worked in the previous governments, it looks more like media management. 

The family members of the slain police officer, who were tied up, provided pictures of the mutilated body of Negar. The Taliban had brutally beaten another police officer, Gulafroz Ebtekar. She, believed to be 34, was a deputy head of criminal investigations in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and was seen as a role model for Afghan women with a notable media presence.

After capturing Kabul on August 15, the Taliban has started implementing Sharia in the country and has completely barred the participation of women in public life. They have announced that they would strictly implement Sharia in the country.

Since capturing power, the Taliban had executed many historians, comedians and singers in Afghanistan. On July 22, Afghanistan’s famous comedian Nazar Mohammad, better known as Khasha Zwan, was kidnapped from his home in Kandahar province and killed by the Taliban. His body was found hanging on a tree. The video of Nazar Mohammad’s kidnapping had gone viral.

The Taliban terrorists had shot dead Afghanistan’s famous poet and historian Abdullah Latifi on August 4. Latifi was killed in his home in Uruzgan’s province’s Chora district.

In another horrific incident, popular folk singer Fawad Andarabi was dragged out of his home and killed by the Taliban in the Kishnabad village of Andarab on August 28.