Nazar Mohammad, popularly known as Khasha Jawan, made people laugh for years in Afghanistan. He was a local comedian in the southern province of Kandahar. Taliban insurgents this week picked him up from his home, assaulted him, and killed him. 

His killing drew widespread condemnation from fellow Afghans. The insurgent group first had denied its involvement in the killing. However, days later, a video emerged showing Taliban fighters picking him up and assaulting him in a car. 

Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Taliban, later clarified that the killing was wrong and the group was identifying the fighters who arrested them. However, he added Khasha Jawan wasn’t just a comedian but a part of the local police. He should have been tried in the Taliban’s court system, he said. 

There are conflicting reports if he was a part of local police. 

However, the execution confirmed what many have been fearing for long: The Taliban hasn’t changed. It still remains the same rough, brutal, obscurantist regime that had ruled Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001 with little or no regard to human rights or civic values. 

The killing of Shasha isn’t an isolated incident. Reports are emerging now, indicating the group has been deliberately killing, punishing civilians whom they consider sympathetic to the government. 

A few days earlier, the Taliban killed at least 43 civilians in Malistan, a district in Ghazni province dominated by Hazara ethnic minority community. Describing the horrifying accounts of Taliban’s retribution, one family which fled to Kabul, said the group had first killed two of their teenage sons and then forced the family member to feed their fighters. 

Hazara, a Persian-speaking Shia community, has historically been in the crosshairs of the hardliner Islamist groups in Afghanistan. Their localities often get bombed in terrorist acts across the country both at hands of the Taliban and ISIS. 

In Badakshan, where the group has captured almost all districts except the provincial centers, insurgents are forcing local women and girls to marry their fighters. Schools and outdoor jobs have been banned for girls and women. Men have been instructed to grow beards; women have been asked not to venture out without a male (relative) companion. 

Thousands of Afghans, local media reports show, are fleeing the territory captured by the group. Some are heading towards Turkey via Iran, a popular route for illegal migration; Others find safety in Kabul, the country’s capital. 

A report in Radio Azadi estimated that around 20,000 to 30,000 Afghans are going abroad every week now. 
 
For western countries, that have counter-terrorism stakes in Afghanistan, it won’t be easy granting sort of legitimacy to the Taliban. The pushback from the vast Afghan diaspora, which is quite vocal now, has already started. 

(SAM)