RASC News Agency: Local sources in Jurm district of Badakhshan have confirmed that Taliban enforcers shot and critically wounded a 75-year-old man, identified as Mastari, after accusing him of writing traditional amulets. The incident, which unfolded in the district center, has once again exposed the group’s violent authoritarianism and its ruthless use of religion as a pretext for repression.
Witnesses recount that a Taliban gunman, affiliated with the so-called Department for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, recklessly emptied an entire Kalashnikov magazine around the elderly man before three bullets struck his frail body. Mastari now lies in a precarious condition at Kunduz Provincial Hospital, where doctors describe his survival as uncertain.
This brutal assault follows a disturbing pattern of Taliban violence against civilians engaged in cultural and spiritual practices. Only weeks earlier, Taliban agents in Khwaja Bahauddin district of Takhar province tortured to death another amulet writer, Mullah Rasul. Neighbors reported that the Taliban fled the scene immediately after the killing, leaving the community traumatized and fearful.
Far from isolated, such incidents reflect the Taliban’s systematic campaign to impose an atmosphere of fear across Afghanistan. In multiple provinces, reports have documented their agents humiliating women in public, harassing taxi drivers for transporting female passengers without veils, and arbitrarily detaining tailors, teachers, and small business owners. Every act underscores a deliberate strategy of intimidation, where violence substitutes for governance and terror replaces justice.
The shooting of Mastari has provoked an outpouring of outrage from Afghanistani civil society activists and human rights defenders. Many have condemned the attack as “barbaric and inhumane,” stressing that the Taliban’s unchecked brutality has stripped communities of the most basic guarantees of safety and dignity. On social media, activists argue that such acts are not about morality but about consolidating absolute control by instilling terror in already vulnerable populations.
Civil society leaders warn that the targeting of elderly men, cultural practitioners, and ordinary civilians is symptomatic of a wider Taliban project weaponizing religion and coercion to suppress diversity, silence dissent, and erase Afghanistan’s social fabric. Under their rule, everyday cultural practices have been criminalized, while the elderly, women, and marginalized communities bear the brunt of their cruelty.
This escalating violence illustrates the complete collapse of accountability in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The so-called “amnesty” promised in 2021 has become meaningless in the face of targeted killings, arbitrary detentions, and unrelenting repression. Each incident, such as the shooting in Badakhshan, reinforces a stark reality: Afghanistan’s people remain trapped in a climate of fear, stripped of protection, and subjected to the Taliban’s culture of impunity.
