The Afghan police has detained two insurgents suspected of killing an Indian author who they accused of spying, a provincial police chief said on Tuesday.
Sushmita Banerjee, whose story was told in the movie Escape from Taliban, was pulled from her home by gunmen in the eastern province of Paktika on Wednesday last week and shot dead.
Paktika provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran said two insurgents were detained while planting a roadside bomb and their features matched the description of the killers given by Banerjee’s Afghan husband.
“During the interrogation, one of them confessed to killing the Indian author but said he had other accomplices,” Mr Zadran told Reuters.
“They said they killed her because she defamed the Taliban in her writing and set up an Internet connection in her home to spy for India,” Mr Zadran added.
The Afghan Taliban denied involvement but Mr Zadran said the two detained men identified themselves as members of a militant faction allied with the Taliban called the Haqqani network.