Ground Report | New Delhi: Who was Abdul Ali Mazari; After the occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban is trying to show itself as revenge. Promising respect to women and security to people, but on the other hand, his real face is also coming to the fore. The Taliban blew up the statue of slain Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari in Bamiyan. The Hazara leader was killed by the Taliban during their previous rule.
Saleem Javed, a human rights activist, tweeted: “The Taliban have blown up the statue of Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari, who was killed in Bamiyan. Last time they killed the Hazara leader and blew up all the historical and archaeological sites, including the huge Buddha statues.
Who was Abdul Ali Mazari
Abdul Ali Mazari was a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1995, when Islamist militants seized power from rival warlords. Mazari was a champion of Shia, Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority, who had been persecuted under the earlier regime of the Sunni Taliban.
In March 1995, Mazari and some of his associates were tricked into meeting Taliban leader Mullah Burjan near Charsayab for peace talks. But Mazari was kidnapped, tortured, and later killed by the Taliban, and his body was dumped from a helicopter in Ghazni.
However, the Taliban claimed that Mazari was killed because he attacked them on their way to Kandahar. He was buried in Mazar-i-Sharif, which was then controlled by the Uzbek chieftain Abdul Rashid Dostum.
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In 2016, he was posthumously given the title of ‘Martyr of National Integration’.
Why Taliban executed him in 1995
The Taliban, who have been desperately trying to present a liberal face after coming to power in Afghanistan, have blown up a statue of a Shia militia leader who fought against them during the civil war in the 1990s.
When Islamist militants seized power from rival warlords in 1996, they killed the militia leader, Abdul Ali Mazari – a champion of the country’s ethnic Hazara minority, Shiites, who had been persecuted under the earlier regime of the Sunni Taliban.
The statue stood in central Bamiyan province, where the Taliban blew up two colossal 1,500-year-old Buddha statues carved into a mountain in 2001, claiming they violated Islam’s prohibition on idolatry.
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The Taliban have been on a PR campaign since their campaign to retake Afghanistan came to an end after the government toppled Kabul on Sunday. They claim that they have changed and will not impose the same harsh restrictions that they did when they ruled with iron last time, other than abolishing women’s rights, public executions, and banning television and music.
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