Salima Mazari, one of the first women governors in Afghanistan, who took up arms against Taliban, has reportedly been captured by the terror outfit, a group of the Hazara community informed by tweeting. However, reports said there is no word on her current status. While a lot of the Afghan provinces surrendered to Taliban without much of a fight, Mazari tried everything to keep her province unscathed. She is the governor of Chahar Kint, a district in Balkh province.
At a time when many Afghan political leaders including President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country, Mazari stayed on till the surrender of Balkh province, when her district of Chahar Kint fell to the Taliban.
Over the past few years, Salima Mazari had gained much praise and attention being a woman leader in Afghanistan. She took up arms to fight Taliban in Balkh Province and had been building her own army for the past few days. The incident comes as the Taliban announced a general apology for all Afghan government officials and urged them to return to work, including women in accordance with Sharia law.
Since the beginning of May, the Taliban had been establishing their dominance in rural areas of Afghanistan, but could not capture Chahar Kint because of Mazari.
Mazari comes from the Hazara community. Most of the people in the community are Shia, whom the Taliban with Sunni Muslims do not like at all. She has been regularly targeted by the Taliban and Islamic State fighters. In May, the terrorist group had attacked a school and killed 80 girls. On Mazari’s call, people sold their cows, sheep and even land and bought weapons. The Taliban has not been able to capture this district due to the resistance of the local people.
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Who is Salima Mazari?
Salima Mazari of Afghan origin was born in Iran as a refugee in 1980, when her family fled the Soviet war. After graduating from Tehran University, she held various roles at universities and the International Migration Organization before deciding to leave her parents and move to the Afghanistan decades ago. In 2018, she came to know that there was a vacancy for the post of Governor of Chahar Kint district. It was her ancestral homeland, so she applied for the post. Thereafter she was elected to the governorship. Seeing the threat of the Taliban and to secure the district, she had set up a Security Commission, which looked after the recruitment of the local army.
In other India news, Jyotiraditya Scindia, on Wednesday said that his Ministry has been operated 44 new flights in the last 35 days from Madhya Pradesh.