By Brian Lanciault
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
NEW DELHI, India — Taliban militants in Afghanistan shot and killed an Indian author, Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about marrying an Afghan and living under the Islamist militia was made into a Bollywood movie. The killing was the latest in a string of attacks on prominent women in Afghanistan, adding to growing fears that women’s rights in the country will recede even more after foreign military forces withdraw in 2014.
The militants arrived before dawn at Banjerjee’s residence in eastern Paktika province, which lies in Afghanistan’s east region, where the Taliban are particularly influential. According to provincial police chief Gen. Dawlat Khan Zadran, her husband, Jaanbaz Khan, answered the door and was immediately bound and blindfolded. The militants then dragged Banerjee outside, and took her to a nearby road where they shot her at least 15 times, Zadran said.
Banerjee, who was in her 40s, was buried Thursday morning. She lived in Daygan Sorqala village, and was well-known as a medical worker in the area, with special training in gynecology. Originally from Kolkata, India, Banerjee wrote “A Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife,” which later became the basis for the 2003 film “Escape from Taliban.” The book described how she met Jaanbaz in India and agreed to marry him despite her parents’ disapproval of the fact that he was Muslim while she was Hindu. According to an online synopsis of the book, Banerjee moved to Afghanistan as Jaanbaz’s second wife, only to find that life under the Taliban’s increasing hold over the country would be unbearable. The Taliban militia, which rose to prominence in 1994 and officially ruled from 1996-2001, placed severe restrictions on women, forcing them to wear all-encompassing burqas and banning employment and education opportunities.
In an interview with India’s Rediff news, Banerjee described trying to flee Afghanistan multiple times to get away from the Taliban, and how she was ordered executed as a result of her attempts. She made it safely back to Kolkata in 1995.
“I still remember the day I stepped on Indian soil for the first time after I had left,” she said. “It was raining outside. People were scurrying for shelter. But I didn’t run. I just stood there and let the rain wash off my pain. I felt if I could bear so much in Afghanistan, I can surely bear my motherland’s rain. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I won’t forget that day.”
Her book was published in 1997, nine years after her marriage.
Zafar Khan, the father of Jaanbaz’s first wife, said Banerjee was beloved in the area, and was known locally by the name Sahib Kamal. He told Indian reporters that many residents were upset that an unarmed woman had been targeted.
“She was a very kind woman. She was very educated — she knew the Internet,” he told them. “Myself, I am very sad. Believe me, I haven’t been able to eat.”
Militants have targeted prominent women several times in recent months in Afghanistan. Last month, officials confirmed that Fariba Ahmadi Kakar, a lawmaker who represents Kandahar province in parliament, was kidnapped and was being held hostage, to be exchanged for four insurgents detained by the government.
In August, insurgents ambushed the convoy of a female Afghan senator, seriously wounding her in the attack and killing her 8-year-old daughter. Senator Rouh Gul Khirzad’s husband, son and another daughter were also wounded in the attack.
For more information, please see:
India Times– Indian author Sushmita Banerjee executed in Afghanistan by Taliban — 6 September 2013
ABC News– Afghan militants shoot dead Indian woman Shushmita Banerjee, who wrote about escape from Taliban — 5 September 2013
Indian Express– Indian author who wrote on her escape from Taliban killed in Afghanistan — 5 September 2013
CBS News– Police: Afghan militants drag female author out of her home, shoot her dead –5 September 2013
