Taliban to try perpetrators of mass killings

KABUL have vowed to put on trial members of the communist regime responsible for killing and torturing some 5,000 Afghans in the late 1970s.

The Dutch government on Sept. 18 issued the list of nearly 5,000 Afghans who were arrested, tortured and killed by then Afghan authorities in 1978 and 1979.

The list is based on investigations conducted by the International Crimes Unit of the Netherlands National Police. The embassy said the names were compiled from meticulous records kept by the communist regime.

Dutch police began their investigation into the crimes in 2010 after an Afghan immigrant confessed to torturing inmates in detention centers while he was chief of the Interrogation Department of the Afghan Security Service.

They expressed the Dutch government’s hope that the list would bring an end to years of uncertainty experienced by the victim’s relatives.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Taliban strongly condemned the crimes and expressed their sympathies with the bereaved families, the victims’ relatives and friends, promising to try those responsible.

“In our rule, we were seriously following the issue of martyrs. On the first day of conquering Kabul, we punished some notorious perpetrators of such crimes,” the statement said.

It said during their regime, the Taliban after consultations with prominent religious scholars presumed dead all those went missing under the communist government’s purges.

The incumbent government has announced mourning the massacre of Afghans during the communist regime next week. Collective prayers will be offered for their souls during a special event slated for Sept 30.

Similarly, the Jamiat-i-Islah party has announced offering funeral in absentia for the dead on Friday in the Chaman-i-Hazoori area of Kabul.

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