NEW DELHI: The Taliban on Wednesday put an alleged murderer to death in the first public execution held in Afghanistan since the Islamist group returned to power.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the man was shot three times by the father of his alleged victim in an execution attended by senior Taliban officials in southwestern Farah province. The man had been accused of stabbing the victim to death in 2017 and stealing a cell phone and bicycle.
The news comes just weeks after the Taliban ordered judges to fully impose their interpretation of Sharia law, including public executions, amputations and flogging – a move that has raised fears of a further deterioration of human rights in the impoverished country.

More than a dozen senior Taliban officials attended the execution, Mujahid said, including acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, and acting deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar, as well as the country's chief justice, acting foreign minister and acting education minister.

It comes after the country's Supreme Court announced public lashings of men and women accused of offences such as robbery and adultery had taken place in several provinces in recent weeks, a possible return to practices common in its hardline rule in the 1990s.

A spokesperson for the UN human rights office last month called on the Taliban authorities to immediately halt the use of public floggings in Afghanistan.

The Taliban's supreme spiritual leader met judges in November and said they should carry out punishments consistent with sharia law, according to a court statement.
Public lashings and executions by stoning took place under the previous 1996-2001 rule of the Taliban.