RASC News Agency: The Taliban have laid the foundation stone for a new prison in Bazarak, the capital of Panjshir province. According to reports from the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency, this prison is being constructed at a cost of over 12 million kabuli rupees. Mohammad Agha Hakim, the Taliban-appointed governor of Panjshir, announced on Monday, October 7, that the prison will span an area of 11 acres and is being funded through the budget of the Taliban’s prison administration.
The Taliban’s announcement of the prison’s construction comes as hundreds of young Panjshiris remain incarcerated in Kabul, Parwan, and Kapisa, solely due to their Panjshiri ethnicity. Over the past three years, the Taliban have, on ethnic grounds, detained, imprisoned, and brutally executed many individuals from northern Afghanistan, particularly the youth of Panjshir. Although official figures on the number of Panjshiri prisoners held by the Taliban have not been released, the World Panjshiri Council published a report in July detailing atrocities in the province. The report revealed that over the past three years, the Taliban have killed 283 people in Panjshir, including children and women.
The report further highlighted the horrific methods employed by the Taliban, such as beheadings, eye-gouging, extrajudicial executions, the execution of sons in front of their fathers, and grotesque torture. According to the World Panjshiri Council, approximately 21,000 Taliban fighters are currently stationed in Panjshir, where they have established checkpoints in numerous villages. Additionally, the report revealed that the Taliban have forcibly displaced 2,477 individuals, including women and children, from districts within Panjshir. In many cases, the Taliban have resettled their own family members in the homes of those displaced.
