HEART CITY (PAN): The prosecutor office in western Herat province said on Wednesday a man who cut off his wife’s fingers and lips and killed his small daughter had been arrested.

Marya Bashir, the attorney, told a news conference in Herat City, the woman had her fingers, lips and flesh from other body parts chopped off by her husband with scissors and pliers.

The couple lived in Iran for the past nine years, so the woman had been unable to complain against her husband, the prosecutor said. The five-member family that returned from Iran to Herat last year is currently living in the Doghabad area of Injeel district.

Police arrested the man on the complaint of his wife. The victim, Arifa, told reporters she had suffered atrocities and abuse at the hands of her spouse for nine years.

“My husband, since we tied knot, has been beating me with fists and kicks and subjecting me to other forms of torture, including electric shocks and forcing her out of home in cold,” the 25-year-old claimed.

“Three days ago, my three-year-old daughter woke up at night and started crying for water. I gave her a glass of water, but she continued to cry, awaking my husband, who smashed her into the ground and she died,” Arifa recalled.

 “One night, he hit me severely and then locked me up in the room. It was midnight when he returned home and asked me to bring him food. I told him there is nothing to eat. He asked me to bring an scissor and pliers.

“When I told him we have no meat to cook, he said we have. And then I brought him scissors and pliers, he took them and cut my fingers, and then cooked them,” she alleged. With tears rolling down her checks, the women said: “I am sure police and the attorney would punish him.”

Bashir said they were investigating the woman’s claims and her husband would be dealt with in accordance with the law.  

Her office has sent 205 cases of violence against women, including murders, to court. In January, a 15-year-old married girl was locked up in a bathroom for six months by her in-laws to force her into prostitution.

Over the past nine months, 4000 incidents of violence against women, including 389 cases of torture and beatings and 66 murders, were recorded in Afghanistan, according to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

According to a report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, 39,000 incidents of domestic violence, including forced marriage, self-immolation and beatings, were registered over the past nine years.

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