 "Taliban members in charge of security patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan. Representational Image/ REUTERS")
Wedding is an occasion of celebration. People dance, sing and make it more joyous, but in Afghanistan these are crime. Taliban authorities, earlier this week, left people in Badakhshan province shocked after it raided a marriage event and arrested 12 young people for playing music.
The cruelty did not end there, Taliban forces publicly shaved the heads of the arrested youths, “inflicting humiliation and pain in front of their community.”
After keeping them in custody for four days, Taliban released the young people on bail.
It is not the first time such inhumanity by Taliban forces was carried out. Alarmingly, it marks the second time in just a month that such violence has been unleashed upon innocent civilians in Badakhshan.
The brutality by Taliban authorities are not leaving people of Afghanistan and the world in shock.
The news of this heinous crime came hours after Taliban publicly executed two men convicted of murder in a football stadium in eastern Afghanistan.
Both men were executed by multiple gunshots to the back in Ghazni City after Supreme Court official Atiqullah Darwish read aloud a death warrant signed by Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Thousands of men had gathered in the stadium to witness the execution.
Taliban bans music in weddings
In June last year, Taliban authorities imposed a ban on playing music, saying it contradicts Islamic rulings.
In an online statement, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice said hall owners were instructed that no more music is allowed at wedding parties.
Since then, one more duty was added to the role of the Taliban’s religious police who were asked to scour wedding halls in Kabul.
The Taliban return to power in August 2021, and in 2022 it advised business owners to avoid music at public gatherings.
The Taliban considers music to be against the teachings of Islam. According to the group’s strict interpretation, only the human voice should produce music – and only in praise of God.
With inputs from agencies