The Taliban has hung the bodies of four alleged kidnappers in the street as a warning to other criminals, according to reports coming out of Afghanistan.
Local government official Sher Ahmad Ammar, the deputy governor of Herat said that Taliban authorities kidnapped a local businessman and his son with the intention to take them out of the city before they were seen by patrols.
A gunfight broke out and all four were killed and one Taliban member was wounded.
He said: “Their bodies were brought to the main square and hung up in the city as a lesson for other kidnappers.”
A resident of the western city of Herat, Mohammad Nazi was shopping at the time near the city square when he heard a loudspeaker announcement calling for people’s attention.
“When I stepped forward, I saw they had brought a body in a pickup truck, then they hung it up on a crane.”
Footage of the corpse, swinging on the crane was shared on social media with a note pinned to the man’s chest that read: “This is the punishment for kidnapping.”
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
No other bodies were visible but others said there were bodies across the city.
The Taliban has received international condemnation for its acts but despite this, it has said it will continue to bring back these punishments on lawbreakers to stop robbery, murder and kidnapping that had become widespread throughout Afghanistan.
Washington condemned the group’s plans to reinstate these treatments and said that any recognition of the Taliban-led government in Kabul would depend on its respect for human rights.
According to the official Bakhtar news agency, eight kidnappers were also arrested in a separate incident in the southwestern province of Uruzgan.
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