Negar Masumi, a female police officer with 15 years of experience, was determined not to flee when the Taliban took control of her home province of Ghor in central Afghanistan.
On Saturday night, gunmen, who called themselves Taliban mujahideen, stormed Negar’s home. They took her husband and four of her sons into another room and tied them up. Then they beat Negar with their guns and shot her dead, according to a family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Negar, who was eight months pregnant, could not believe she would be killed because of her job.
“She didn’t listen to our warnings. Today we buried her bruised and torn body,” says her relative.
The Taliban denied responsibility for her death and told local media that they were investigating the killing. However, Hassan Hakimi, a human rights activist from Ghor province, who has now left Afghanistan, has heard reports that this is the Taliban’s new strategy to avoid responsibility. “The Taliban order their fighters to kill targets secretly and involve their Talib relatives.” That way, he says, the Taliban can argue that it was a family feud.
Although the Taliban promised an amnesty for government and NGO workers, the targeted killing of government employees, especially women who worked for the Afghan security forces, is on the rise.
In the past three months, at least four female police officers part from Negar Masumi have been killed in Kandahar, Kapisa and Ghazni provinces. In August, after Ghazni province fell, two female police officers were abducted from Ghazni city and murdered by the Taliban, according to local media.
When Lt Maryam*, a counter-terrorism officer in Kabul, saw the threatening letter sent to her parent’s house a day after the collapse of their northern province, she realised that freed prisoners had identified her.
