A tragic Afghan killing
The killing of Indian diarist-writer Sushmita Banerjee in Afghanistan earlier this week is a matter of shock and grief, but a temptation to draw a larger picture is apt to lead to misleading inferences. The information available to us so far appears too thin.
The Afghan police has been quoted in news reports as saying that the writer’s late-night execution outside her home on Wednesday night was the handiwork of the Taliban. The Afghan security forces are pretty good with their intelligence work. But that is when targets pertain to the present Afghan state or its allies.
The security forces constantly monitor the movements of the Pakistan-based armed extremist outfits, including the Taliban, in the context of these entities. Ms Banerjee was, however, not in this category.
She married an Afghan national nearly a quarter century ago, lived in that country, later wrote about her flight from Taliban captivity, and returned to her husband’s home in Paktika province in southeast Afghanistan. Paktika is very far from Kabul, where militant activity is typically focused, and the province has very few targets that may be of interest to most of the extremists.
The Taliban, who quite routinely accept or claim responsibility for violent acts, have denied killing the Indian writer. But even if evidence were to point in their direction, nothing so far suggests that this long-term resident of Afghanistan was shot dead because she was an Indian. It may be premature to rule out personal motives at this stage.
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