RASC News Agency: Local sources in the Afghanistani province of Logar have confirmed that a 60-year-old mother and her 13-year-old daughter were brutally murdered by robbers in the Umarabad area of Pul-e-Alam, the provincial capital.
The horrifying double homicide has reignited public outrage over the Taliban’s inability to provide even minimal security amid a surge in violent crime across the country.
The Taliban’s provincial police command in Logar, in a statement released on Sunday, November 9, announced that two suspects had been arrested in connection with the killings and the theft of money and valuables from the victims’ home.
According to details provided in the statement, the assailants allegedly rendered the mother and daughter unconscious before killing them with an axe. After the murder, the perpetrators reportedly hid the bodies in a wooden chest in an attempt to conceal the crime.
The statement added that the robbers had stolen USD $4,000 and approximately 200,000 Afghanistani rupees from the victims’ residence before fleeing the scene.
Residents of Umarabad told RASC News that the gruesome killing has spread shock, fear, and anger throughout the neighborhood. Many families now say they are afraid to let their women and daughters leave home, even during daylight hours.
“Incidents like this were extremely rare in the past,” one resident said. “But under Taliban control, robberies, killings, and disappearances are increasing every month. No one feels safe anymore.”
The murder comes just days after a university professor in Kabul was killed during a robbery, and only weeks after a young man in Takhar province was shot dead by armed thieves. The pattern, observers say, reflects a nationwide collapse in law enforcement under the Taliban’s rule.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban have repeatedly touted their ability to restore law and order after decades of conflict. Yet, reports from across Afghanistan suggest a steady escalation in violent crime, including armed robberies, kidnappings, and murders crimes that often go unpunished due to the regime’s weak policing structure and lack of investigative capacity.
Human rights defenders and local activists say the Taliban’s focus on ideological control and moral policing, rather than professional law enforcement, has created a vacuum that criminals are exploiting with impunity.
“The Taliban are busy forcing women to wear burqas and arresting people for listening to music,” said one civil activist from Logar, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Meanwhile, ordinary citizens are being slaughtered in their homes with no protection at all.”
Security analysts note that the Taliban’s failure to protect citizens highlights deep structural weaknesses in their governance. The regime’s police forces, composed largely of untrained fighters, lack the forensic, legal, and procedural frameworks required to investigate or prevent serious crimes.
Furthermore, the collapse of Afghanistan’s judicial system, combined with widespread corruption and arbitrary justice under Taliban rule, has eroded public trust.
Many communities have resorted to self-protection, forming local patrols or neighborhood watch groups to fill the gap left by the absent state.
The Logar murders have become a grim symbol of Afghanistan’s deepening insecurity.
Citizens increasingly accuse the Taliban of prioritizing ideological domination over public safety, while ignoring the social and economic conditions fueling crime.
“The Taliban promised peace, but what we have is silence born of fear,” said a teacher from Pul-e-Alam. “Our daughters are killed in their own homes, and the killers walk freely until the public outrage becomes too loud to ignore.”
With poverty soaring, unemployment rampant, and the regime internationally isolated, Afghanistan faces a dangerous convergence of desperation and lawlessness.
The murder of a mother and her young daughter in Logar stands as a haunting reminder that the Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate” far from restoring stability has plunged Afghanistani society into a new age of fear, uncertainty, and impunity.
