Indian police have arrested three suspects following an investigation into an app that shared photos of over 100 prominent Muslim women and said that they were being sold on an online “auction.” Rights activists and Muslim community leaders say the case is an apparent hate attack aimed at the minority Muslim community.

The cybercrime unit of Mumbai police arrested Vishal Kumar Jha, a 21-year-old engineering student from the southern city of Bangalore Tuesday, saying that he was “closely involved” with the app “Bulli Bai,” named after vulgar and derogatory local slang used to address Muslim women.

The same day, the Mumbai police arrested Shweta Singh, 18, from the northern state of Uttarakhand, alleging that she was the mastermind behind the app and that the two suspects knew each other.

After arresting the third accused, Mayank Rawal, from Uttarakhand, Wednesday, Mumbai police chief Hemant Nagrale said more arrests are expected in the case.

Following protests and outrage from the Muslim women victims, rights activists, and others, the app — which was hosted on web platform GitHub — was taken down, a day after it had gone up. 

In Hindu-majority India, Muslims make up around 14% of the country’s 1.38 billion population. 

On New Year’s Day, scores of influential Muslim women, including some journalists and rights activists, found that their photographs had been displayed on the app without their consent and they were placed on “sale” in the fake auction of Bulli Bai.

It was the second harassment attempt targeting Muslim women within six months, after another app called “Sulli Deals” surfaced in July, carrying profiles with photos of over 80 prominent Muslim women as “deals of the day.” 

In both cases of Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai, there was no actual sale or auction, but they were aimed at harassing, humiliating and intimidating some Muslim women who are mostly known for being vocal against the right-wing Hindu nationalism and some policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Fatima Khan, a Delhi-based journalist was shocked on New Year’s Day to find that she was “for sale” online on Bulli Bai.

“For the second time in less than six months, I found that I was ‘for sale’ to the highest bidder or, just anyone else, online. It triggered a feeling of extreme disgust and repulsion. Discovering my image there also made me realize just how far they could go to harm me,” Khan told VOA. “A shiver ran down my spine.”

All the individuals listed on Bulli Bai were prominent Muslim women, she said.

“These women use their platforms to throw light on the injustice taking place in the country. They exist in the public domain — and that is enough to provoke the right-wing Hindutva groups to target the Muslim women in another hate attack,” Khan added. 

Daniel Bastard, Asia-Pacific director of Reporters Without Borders, said, that the appearance of the kind of app, “offering to place women journalists at the disposal of its users as if they were objects, is absolutely chilling.” 

“We urge the Indian authorities to do whatever is necessary to bring those responsible for such apps to justice. To do nothing would be to condone an extremely violent form of harassment, a form of intimidation that discriminates against an entire sector of the journalistic community and exposes those targeted to potential physical attacks,” Bastard said in a written statement.

Hyderabad-based social activist Khalida Parveen said that she believed her name was listed on Bulli Bai because she had recently raised her voice seeking action against Yati Narsinghanand, a right-wing Hindu monk who called on Hindus to take up arms against Muslims.

“I launched a campaign on Twitter demanding the monk’s arrest. The campaign led the police at several locations to initiate actions against his hate speech and it received international attention. They mischievously put me ‘for sale’ on that app in a bid to stop my campaign,” Parveen, 67, told VOA. 

“Those who launched the app attempting to shame and intimidate me and other Muslim women are mentally sick. However, they have failed in their evil plan. Neither do I feel ashamed, nor intimidated … I feel pity for them.”

Social activists and Muslim community leaders said that Hindu right-wing activists were behind Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai. 

“Sulli Deals and, now Bulli Bai are an assault on Muslim women’s free voices and dignity. They are specifically targeting Muslim women who are vocal on various social issues and have their own minds. This is part of the larger right-wing Hindu agenda to defame Muslim women and vilify Muslims,” Delhi-based rights activist Shabnam Hashmi told VOA. 

“If the culprits were apprehended after Sulli Deals, maybe we would have not seen Bulli Bai now.” 

Former chairman of Delhi Minority Commission, Delhi-based Muslim community leader Zafarul-Islam Khan said that the fake auction apps targeting Muslim women were “crude manifestations of the hate carefully cultivated for over a century, by the RSS.” The right-wing Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS, is the ideological fountainhead of India’s ruling party of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“Before May 2014 [when Modi became prime minister], the campaign against Muslims was covert and shy, spread via unsigned pamphlets, letters and messages sent and posted by faceless people. Post-2014, they are emboldened. Now the right-wing Hindu forces know that they have the protection of the state and hence act boldly and openly,” community leader Khan told VOA. 

“With elections in a number of Indian states being round the corner, the anti-Muslim hate campaign will become more visible. A free and democratic India cannot co-exist with Hindutva,” he said. Hindutva is a movement that seeks to establish the hegemony of Hindus and Hinduism in India. 

 
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A police official in Kazakhstan’s largest city said Thursday that dozens of people were killed in attacks on government buildings.

There were attempts to storm buildings in Almaty during the night and “dozens of attackers were liquidated,” police spokeswoman Saltanat Azirbek said Thursday. She spoke on state news channel Khabar-24. The reported attempts to storm the buildings came after widespread unrest in the city on Wednesday, including seizure of the mayor’s building, which was set on fire.

Kazakhstan is experiencing the worst street protests the country has seen since gaining independence three decades ago. Government buildings have been set ablaze and at least eight law enforcement officers also have been killed.

A Russia-led military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, said early Thursday that it would send peacekeeper troops to Kazakhstan at the request of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Kazakhstan has been rocked by intensifying protests that began on Sunday over a sharp rise in prices for liquefied petroleum gas fuel. The protests began in the country’s west but spread to Almaty and the capital Nur-Sultan.

 
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Kashmir’s Christians are celebrating the fact that their region was spared from a wave of anti-Christian violence that marred the Christmas season elsewhere in India, with many attributing the seasonal goodwill to appreciation for the work of Christian missionaries and a local tradition of communal harmony. 

Prompted by rising Hindu nationalism in much of India, the nation’s Christian community suffered 305 violent incidents in the first nine months of 2021, according to a report compiled by three interest groups: the United Christian Forum, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights, and United Against Hate.

Such attacks continued through December, with several incidents in which festive celebrations were disrupted, Jesus statues were damaged and Santa Claus effigies were burned.

In the Kashmir Valley, however, it was a different story with Muslims and Sikhs joining the valley’s small Christian community in celebrating Christmas with brightly decorated churches and shared religious ceremonies. 

“Kashmiri Muslims, who inherit rich traditions and customs of hospitality, brotherhood and respect, do set an example to the rest of the world with these values,” said Father Suresh Britto, the priest at the Holy Family Church in the Srinagar district, who described how Kashmiri Muslims participate in Christmas festivities just as Christians join in the Muslim celebration of Eid. 

Tanya Rigzin, a Kashmiri Christian whose family has lived in Kashmir for five generations, described the spirit of shared festivities across the valley. “While the world celebrates with cakes, we in Kashmir prepare local dishes on this occasion.” 

Another Christian, Shammi Sohail, told VOA that Christmas is an annual sacred event for his community and that his fellow Christians had been busy shopping ahead of December 25. “We prepared for Christmas with all the zeal this year as well,” he said. 

Not immune to clashes

Kashmir’s tradition of sectarian harmony has not made it immune to political violence. A total of 274 people — most of them Muslim militants seeking an end to Indian rule in Kashmir — died in political violence in the past year alone, but the militants themselves insist they were not targeting people based on their religion, but only those working for Indian authorities.

Despite the violence, Hamidullah Marazi, head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Central University of Kashmir, told VOA that Kashmir has long been a place where differing religious and ethnic groups have existed side by side.

“There exists harmony among people of all hues,” he said in an interview. “Even now, Kashmir presents glorious examples of communal and religious harmony amidst the worst provocations, when any opportunity emerged to show this attitude.”

He noted that members of the region’s Muslim majority have been known to arrange for the cremation of Kashmiri Hindus — known as pandits — who die in the valley and have no relatives or co-religionists to perform last rites.

“With Christians, the Kashmiri Muslim populace has maintained the same behavior, and they have religiously protected the interests of the religious minorities, especially of Christians,” he said.

Britto said the people of Kashmir have historically prized a spirit of cultural pluralism and religious tolerance known as Kashmiriyat. 

“The Kashmiriyat holds in its bosom everyone without discrimination,” he said. “The rich pluralistic diversity is part of the Kashmir society. Hence intolerance has no place in the Kashmiri society.” 

Elsewhere in India, recent weeks have seen several attacks on Christians, including incidents in which a church in New Delhi and a Catholic school in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state were damaged by vandals.

Church restored

In Kashmir, by contrast, the state’s the tourism department has refurbished and restored St. Luke’s Church, a beloved edifice for Protestant Christians, after it had been closed for 30 years because of militancy.

The local administration pushed hard to complete the work before December 25. The tourism department’s contractor, Mohammad Saleem, told VOA that his crew began the renovation in 2020 but had to stop the work during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Despite the bone-chilling cold, we worked hard to finish the work at the earliest so that Christians celebrate Christmas in this church,” he said. 

The cornerstone of the church was laid in 1896 by Ernest and Arthur Neve, English missionaries who introduced cholera and smallpox vaccinations to the Himalayan region in the late 1800s.The two doctors provided medical services at Kashmir Mission Hospital, which they founded in 1888, now known as the Government Chest Disease Hospital.

“The history of modern health care in the pre-independence era in Kashmir is synonymous with Christian missionary activities,” says a posting on the website of the Directorate of Health Services detailing the history of health care in Kashmir. 

The Christian community has also played a major role in education in Kashmir, according to the Reverend Eric Priest of All Saints Church, who has been in Kashmir for over three years and says he has found the people warm and welcoming. 

Many local Muslims have studied at the Tyndale Biscoe School, which was founded by Christian missionaries in 1880 and was named after Canon Cecil Tyndale-Biscoe. 

Christmas is also a boon for local businesses in Kashmir. Syed Amjad Ali, the owner of a local handicraft manufacturer, said his firm began receiving orders for handmade products for Christians from May, some from as far away as Europe. 

Ali estimated the value of handicraft exports for Christmas at more than $2.63 million, which is around 8% of total handicraft exports. 
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In Kazakhstan, locals took to the streets to express their anger with a sharp rise in fuel prices. In response, the country’s government has resigned, and a state of emergency has been declared. Anna Rice has the story. Alex Yanevskyy contributed.
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Kazakhstan’s president, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, has declared a nationwide state of emergency and stripped his predecessor of a powerful leadership role after thousands of anti-government protesters clashed with police and stormed government buildings in an unprecedented wave of unrest in the oil-rich Central Asian nation that was sparked by a fuel price hike.

Angry demonstrators, some of whom were armed with rubber truncheons, sticks, and shields, set fire on January 5 to a presidential residence and the mayor’s office in the country’s largest city, Almaty, where protesters also seized control of the airport, prompting the temporary suspension of all flights.

Police engaged in pitched battles with the protesters, using tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets to try to disperse the crowds, but were largely unsuccessful. 

Communications monitors reported a “national-scale” internet blackout, while RFE/RL journalists in the country said both internet and telephone services had deteriorated markedly. 

Toqaev sacked the government earlier on January 5 and later declared the state of emergency in a bid to squelch the protests, which erupted in the western region of Mangystau three days ago over a sudden hike in prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a popular fuel used in vehicles in the oil-rich country, along with general discontent over issues such as corruption, unemployment, and low wages. 

“As president, I am obliged to protect the safety and peace of our citizens, to worry about the integrity of Kazakhstan,” he said in a live address on television. 

In a major move to distance himself from the past, Toqaev also removed his predecessor, 81-year-old Nursultan Nazarbayev, from the powerful post of head of the country’s Security Council. 

Nazarbayev had retained wide authority through the post since stepping down in 2019 as president after three decades in power, the last Soviet-era Communist Party boss still ruling an ex-Soviet state. 

Some protesters laid the blame for many of the country’s problems on him, with demonstrators in the city of Taldykorgan, the capital of Almaty Province, toppling a statue of the former leader. 

Violence also was reported on January 5 in the northern city of Aqtobe, where police fired tear gas at protesters who tried to enter the regional government building by force. 

An RFE/RL correspondent at the scene saw several people with leg injuries. 

Protests in Kazakhstan

Protests also continued in other cities and towns, including Aqtau, Zhanaozen, and Oral, where dozens of people were reportedly detained. 

Protesters voicing discontent over issues such as corruption, unemployment, and low wages have clashed with police in several of Kazakhstan’s main cities. 

Limits appeared to have been imposed on the internet to interrupt the ability of demonstrators to mobilize, with web monitoring group NetBlocks reporting a nationwide “blackout.”

Messenger apps Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp were all said to be unavailable in Kazakhstan, while the website of RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service and those of independent media that reported on the protests also appeared to be blocked. 

According to the Interior Ministry, more than 200 people were detained during a previous night of unrest in Almaty and elsewhere, but observers say that number appears to be underestimated. The ministry also said that at least 95 officers have been injured in the clashes. 

Cabinet resignation 

A decree order published on the presidential website on the morning of January 5 said Toqaev had accepted the resignation of the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Asqar Mamin, in line with the constitution. 

First Deputy Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov was appointed as interim prime minister, and current members of the government will continue their duties until a new cabinet is formed, according to the order. 

Before its resignation, the government announced it was restoring the price cap of 50 tenge ($0.11) per liter on LPG, or less than half the market price, in Mangystau. 

Demonstrators in Aqtau and Zhanaozen argued that the removal of some officials wouldn’t bring lasting results and called for the dissolution of parliament, where no genuine opposition political forces are represented, and new limits to presidential powers, among other things. 

Zhanaozen was the scene of a 2011 police crackdown against oil workers protesting over pay and working conditions that claimed the lives of at least 16 of them. 

In addition to replacing the prime minister, Toqaev appointed a new first deputy chairman of the National Security Committee (KNB) to replace Samat Abish, a nephew of powerful former President Nursultan Nazarbaev. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 

 
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Pakistan’s military confirmed Wednesday it is acquiring multirole J-10 fighter jets from China in response to a buildup of rival India’s air force.

“This is a step to upgrade our air force fleet and get the best possible technology available because we know what kind of technology is being acquired on the other [Indian] side,” Army spokesman Major-Gen Babar Iftikhar told a news conference.

The J-10 is a single-engine fighter jet that reportedly has been in use by China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) since 2005.

Iftikhar spoke just days after Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad disclosed the purchase of the Chinese jets at a public event, saying they will serve as a counterweight to India’s deployment of French Dassault Rafale aircraft.

India’s contract to purchase 36 of the French fighters was first announced in 2015. India’s Minister of State for Defense Ajay Bhatt told reporters in late July that 26 of the aircraft had been delivered, with the remainder expected by the end of 2021.

“Our adversary is continuously procuring latest equipment on one pretext and the other. Any conventional imbalance in this region is very dangerous,” Iftikhar warned. “That is something that is going to lead us into a race for procuring more equipment.”

The army spokesman declined to say how many of the aircraft are being bought.

Last week, Ahmed told reporters a full squadron of 25 Chinese J-10 planes will take part in the Pakistan Day military parade on March 23. The interior minister said the flyby ceremony of J-10 jets “is going to be performed by the Pakistan Air Force in response to Rafale.”

Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two over the disputed Kashmir territory, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

China has officially not commented on the sale of the jets to Pakistan.

Recent Israeli media reports said J-10 jets are believed to be based on technology developed by Israel Aircraft Industries in the 1980s before it halted the project a few years later because of mounting costs.

U.S.-made F-16 fighter planes form a crucial part of Pakistan’s Air Force fleet and are considered a counterweight to the Rafale jets India has purchased from France.

But analysts say Islamabad’s often strained ties with Washington in recent years have prompted the South Asian nation to increasingly rely on close ally China to augment Pakistan’s defenses.

Iftikhar said Wednesday that negotiations were also underway with China to procure new Z-10 attack helicopters. “Hopefully we will be getting some gunships from there,” he said.

The general confirmed the scrapping of Pakistan’s 2018 deal with Turkey to buy 30 T-129 combat helicopters. “As far as the Turkish deal is concerned, we have moved on,” Iftikhar said when asked whether the contract was still intact.

T-129 helicopter gunships are powered by a U.S.-made engine and the U.S. refusal to grant Turkey export licenses for engines led to the cancellation of the reported $1.5 billion deal.

The Pakistani air force fleet also contains single-engine JF-17 fighter jets jointly produced by Pakistan and China.
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Protesters and security forces clashed In Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, in the early hours of January 5, amid intensifying anti-government demonstrations in the Central Asian country. Protests first erupted in the western region of Mangystau on January 2 over a sudden hike in fuel prices and later spread to cities across the country. As violence spiraled, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev declared a state of emergency.
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India has expanded its vaccination drive for COVID-19 to teenagers from 15 to 18 years of age. The push comes as the country braces for a third wave driven by the Omicron variant and Indian cities impose fresh restrictions. Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi.
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As a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic looms in India, driven by the omicron variant of coronavirus, authorities have begun giving shots to 15 to 18 year olds.   

There was enthusiasm and a sense of relief among teenagers as they lined up outside medical centers and in schools where vaccines are being given – about 10 million got a shot since the start of the week.        

“I feel more confident that I can now go out. I used to feel so scared when I went to school that I may get COVID and carry the infection to my parents and neighborhood,” said Ajay Verma, a high school student. 

The inoculation drive for youngsters got underway amid an exponential jump in COVID-19 cases in mega cities like Delhi and Mumbai. After seeing a dramatic decline for months, India reported 58,000 cases Wednesday — a sevenfold jump in just a week.   

That has prompted authorities to impose fresh restrictions – officials in the capital, New Delhi, have announced a weekend curfew and closed gyms and movie theaters. In Mumbai, authorities said they will consider imposing a lockdown if daily cases cross the 20,000 mark.  The city recorded more than 10,000 cases Tuesday. 

Schools that reopened just months ago have again closed for in-person classes in many places.   

That has created fresh anxiety among youngsters in a country where school closures lasted for nearly a year-and-a-half — longer than in much of the world.

“Online school, it gets lonely. Schools in person is always much more fun so I am looking forward to it when it is safe,” says Sania Gupta, a high school student in Gurugram, a business hub adjoining New Delhi.   

India’s inoculation drive began early last year, but even as several countries around the world have been vaccinating young children, health authorities had said they want to inoculate all adults before expanding the program.  About two thirds of India’s adults have been fully vaccinated, while 90% have received one shot.   

However, in the country with the largest estimated adolescent population in the world, calls were growing to also protect younger people, especially as India has an adequate vaccine supply.   

“Sooner or later a wider population needs to be vaccinated, specially in India, where adults constitute only 63% of the total population, unlike some countries, such as Europe, where adults are around 80% of population,” said Chandrakant Lahariya, a public health expert. “So even if we vaccinate all adults, nearly one-third of the country is still unprotected.” 

India has more than 120 million people between 15 and 19 years old, according to the country’s 2011 census. And while adolescents have largely escaped the brunt of the pandemic, several countries have seen infections rising among children.      

India, which has counted the second highest number of COVID-19 infections in the world, will also begin administering booster shots to health care workers and senior citizens with comorbidities starting Monday.  

The expanded inoculation drive is raising hope that the country will not experience the devastation that was triggered by the delta variant last year when hundreds of thousands of daily infections overwhelmed hospitals and led to crippling shortages of oxygen. At that time much of the country was unvaccinated.       

“Unlike the delta wave, where high proportion of infected individuals would require hospitalization, oxygen, and intensive care beds, in omicron the current evidence says infection is mostly mild and severe disease is mostly linked to pre-existing high-risk conditions or unvaccinated individuals,” said Lahariya.  

“So, in that backdrop, cases might rise and that theoretically might be classified as a fresh wave, but the impact is not likely to be the same,” he pointed out.  

That is what high school students getting shots are hoping as they yearn to resume a semblance of normalcy — an estimated 200 million children have been affected due to school closures in India.     

“I want schools to reopen so that I can get back into the habit of studying,” said high school student, Amit Sahu. “I just could not concentrate at home.” It’s a sentiment that many echo.
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Demonstrators protesting rising fuel prices broke into the mayor’s office in Kazakhstan’s largest city Wednesday and flames were seen coming from inside, according to local news reports. 

Many of the demonstrators who converged on the building in Almaty carried clubs and shields, the Kazakh news site Zakon said. 

Protests against a sharp increase in prices for liquefied gas began this week in the country’s west. 

As the protests spread to Almaty and Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, the government resigned. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency in Almaty, imposing an overnight curfew and limiting access to the city. 

At the start of the year, prices for the gas that is used to power many vehicles roughly doubled as the government concluded a shift away from price controls. 

 
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Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has declared a two-week state of emergency in the Central Asian nation’s biggest city Almaty and in the western Mangistau province where protests turned violent, his office said early Wednesday. 

The move includes an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, movement restrictions, and a ban on mass gatherings, according to documents published on the president’s website. 

“Calls to attack government and military offices are absolutely illegal,” Tokayev said in a video address a few hours earlier. “The government will not fall, but we want mutual trust and dialog rather than conflict.” 

As he spoke, police in Almaty used tear gas and stun grenades to stop hundreds of protesters from storming the mayor’s office, a Reuters correspondent reported from the scene. 

The oil-rich country’s government announced late on Tuesday it was restoring some price caps on liquefied petroleum gas, after the rare protests reached Almaty following a sharp rise in the price of fuel at the start of the year. 

Many Kazakhs have converted their cars to run on LPG, which is far cheaper than gasoline as a vehicle fuel in Kazakhstan because of price caps. But the government argued that the low price was unsustainable and lifted the caps on January 1. 

Price spike 

After the price of the fuel spiked, rallies involving thousands of people erupted on January 2 in the town of Zhanaozen, an oil hub and site of deadly clashes between protesters and police a decade ago. 

Demonstrations spread to other parts of surrounding Mangistau province and western Kazakhstan, including provincial center Aktau and a worker camp used by sub-contractors of Kazakhstan’s biggest oil producer, Tengizchevroil. The Chevron-led venture said output had not been affected. 

In Almaty, police appeared to have taken control of the main square shortly after deploying flashbang grenades, according to online video streams from the area. But explosions were heard for hours on nearby streets and in other parts of the city. 

Videos published online showed torched police cars in the city, as well as armored vehicles moving through one of its main thoroughfares. 

On Tuesday evening, the government announced it was restoring the price cap of 50 tenge (11 cents) per liter, or less than half the market price, in Mangistau province. 

Public protests are illegal in the country of 19 million unless their organizers file a notice in advance. 

Tokayev, the hand-picked successor of Soviet-era Communist boss Nursultan Nazarbayev who stepped down in 2019, faces no political opposition in parliament. 

The president said on Twitter on Tuesday that he would hold a government meeting the following day to discuss the protesters’ demands. He urged protesters to behave responsibly. 

 
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Authorities in India’s capital Delhi on Tuesday ordered people to stay home over coming weekends, with COVID-19 cases quadrupling in a week.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the most senior elected official in the capital’s administration, was one of the 37,379 new COVID-19 cases reported in India in the space of 24 hours.

Kejriwal, who announced his infection the day after addressing an election rally without a mask, is among scores of political leaders — including Prime Minister Narendra Modi — holding events across India in front of large crowds.

In the northeastern Manipur state, Modi addressed several hundred people at an election rally, many sitting in close proximity with their masks pulled down. In Uttar Pradesh, the ruling party and opposition groups also held big gatherings where many went without masks.

Mega-rallies last year helped the delta variant to wreak havoc in India, and with several state elections due in coming months, health experts and the public are growing worried.

India’s daily case load was the highest since September and experts suspect the highly transmissible omicron variant has begun to overtake delta, although hospital admissions have not jumped yet.

Delhi is reporting more than 4,000 cases a day, and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said although most patients were showing mild or no symptoms and recovering fast, people would be required to stay indoors on Saturdays and Sundays.

On weekdays, most offices will have to ensure that half their employees work from home, he told a media briefing.

Delhi, India’s financial capital Mumbai and the technology hub Bengaluru have already imposed curbs on movement during the night, and some cities have also closed schools and colleges.

Kejriwal, who addressed a rally in the state of Uttarakhand, said on Twitter he had isolated at home with mild symptoms and urged anyone he had recently been in contact with to do likewise and take a test for COVID-19.

The federal government has encouraged local authorities to impose movement curbs if more than 5% of COVID-19 tests are positive. Delhi registered a 6% infection rate on Monday.

India has so far recorded 482,017 official deaths from COVID-19.
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Indian police on Tuesday said they had made their first arrest in an investigation into an online app that shared pictures of scores of Muslim women for an “auction” in a case of apparent hatred toward the minority community.

In recent days, several Indian Muslim women said on social media that their pictures had been used without consent to create an open source app on the GitHub platform.

The app was called Bulli Bai, a derogatory term to describe Muslim women.

Ismat Ara, a journalist targeted by the app, said in a police complaint filed on Sunday that it was an attempt to harass Muslim women.

“‘Github’ is violent, threatening and intending to create a feeling of fear and shame in my mind, as well as in the minds of women in general, and the Muslim community whose women are being targeting in this hateful manner,” said the complaint, which Ara posted on social media.

A senior police official in the western city of Mumbai said that its cyber crime division had arrested a 21-year-old man and also detained a woman in the northern state of Uttarakhand in connection with the incident.

“Both of the accused know each other,” the official said.

India’s Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said last Saturday that GitHub had confirmed blocking the user who created the app.
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Since its emergence as an independent kingdom in 1919, Afghanistan has experienced cycles of internal strife, often reflecting the tension between those pushing for modernization and liberalization (particularly with respect to women’s rights), and tribal and religious leaders fighting for a conservative, traditional Muslim society. Invasions by foreign powers also contributed to decades of continuous violence in the country. In this video, VOA explores the circle of these conflicts over the past century.
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Pakistan said Monday it was engaging with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers through diplomatic channels to resolve “some confusions” stemming from the installation of a security fence on the porous border separating the two countries.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad that his country was determined to protect its “interests” and continue unilateral fencing Pakistan’s nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

The Pakistani chief diplomat was responding to recent attempts by Taliban border forces aimed at preventing Pakistan from building the barrier. The latest such incident apparently happened over the weekend when the Afghan side dismantled a portion of the fence.

“We are not silent. We have installed the fence and, God willing, this effort will continue,” Qureshi stressed. “Afghanistan is our friendly neighbor. We are engaged with them, as some confusions have emerged, and we shall be able to resolve them through diplomatic channels.” 

A Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman on Sunday criticized the fencing project, saying Pakistan had “no right to erect barbed wire along the Durand Line and separate the tribes on both sides of the line.” 

Successive governments in Afghanistan have disputed the 1893 British colonial-era demarcation. The boundary was the outcome of an agreement between Sir Mortimer Durand, a secretary of the British Indian government, and then-Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan.

Pakistan dismisses Afghan objections, saying it inherited the international border after gaining independence from Britain in 1947. But the differences over the status of the border continue to strain bilateral ties.

The massive military-led construction effort started in 2017 to block illegal militant movement and smuggling. Pakistani officials say more than 90% of the work has been completed. 

The fencing project occasionally triggered fatal clashes between Pakistani troops and Afghan security forces of the former Western-backed government in Kabul that the Taliban ousted last August.
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Clothing shops in Afghanistan’s western Herat province have begun removing the heads of display mannequins, in line with new directives given by the local office of the Taliban’s ministry for Islamic guidance.

Obeidullah Yari, a local business community leader, told VOA on Monday that about 20% of the shops in the provincial capital, also named Herat, have already implemented the order to escape punishment. 

The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention Vice, which is responsible for administering the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, decreed last week that shop mannequins should have their heads removed for being offensive to Islam, warning that violators would be punished.

City mall owners and garment sellers initially criticized the Taliban directive, telling Afghan media that mannequins were also used to display clothes in other Islamic counties. But Yari said shopkeepers were now removing the heads of the dummies. 

Aziz Rahman, the provincial head of the ministry, told local media he ordered shopkeepers to hack the heads off their mannequins because “they are idols.” He went on to explain that Islam prohibits idolatry, or the worshipping of idols.

Taliban authorities reportedly have also increased monitoring of public taxis in the capital, Kabul, to see if drivers are abiding by the ministry’s instructions related to women’s right to travel. 

The decree requires drivers to carry only those female passengers who wear a headscarf or Islamic hijab and are accompanied by a male relative if they travel more than 72 kilometers. It also instructs cabdrivers to grow beards, stop their vehicles at prayer times and stop playing music while driving.

The ministry reportedly has also banned Afghan women from driving. It has also ordered local channels to stop showing dramas and soap operas featuring actresses, and female news anchors to wear hijabs while on the air. 

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in a recent interview to Afghan state television, defended the steps taken by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention Vice, saying they should not be a matter of concern for anyone because “Afghanistan is Muslim nation and no one is opposed to Islamic laws in the country.”

Mujahid said, however, that all government “religious departments” are instructed not to “mistreat people and be polite to them” while giving them guidance about Islam.

The ultraconservative Taliban regained power in August and named an all-male interim Cabinet to govern the conflict-torn country in line with the group’s strict interpretation of Islam, despite pledging not to revert to the harsh polices of their previous regime from 1996 to 2001.  

The government has allowed schoolboys to return to classes but girls across many Afghan provinces are still waiting for permission to do so and most women have been prevented from returning to work.

When the Taliban were last in power, girls were not allowed to attend school and women were barred from work as well as education. The then-Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the morals police, had been accused of serious human rights abuses, leading to Afghanistan’s isolation from the world. 

Mujahid said that arrangements were being made to allow all Afghan girls to resume their educational activities, noting that schoolgirls across several provinces have already rejoined classes.

Critics, however, are skeptical of the Taliban assurances and say the group is gradually bringing back its repressive policies of the past.

“It was expected; but I would have welcomed every single employee of this ministry to be focused on poverty reduction, aid delivery and lifting the beggars from the street, feeding them & giving them a job as their 1st priority,” tweeted Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official.

The United States and the global community at large have not recognized the new Taliban government and suspended most non-humanitarian financial assistance to the aid-dependent country.

Foreign countries continue to refuse to open direct political engagement with the Islamist group until it ensures respect for human rights, especially those of women, runs the country inclusively and cuts ties with transnational terrorists. 

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is in the grip of a severe humanitarian crisis stemming from years of war, drought and poverty. The United Nations has repeatedly warned that more than half the population in the country are facing starvation, with nearly a million children at risk of dying because of a “severe acute malnutrition.”
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India has given half a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan and pledged to send more vaccines and food grain in the coming weeks to the country, where millions face hunger.

The vaccines were delivered Saturday, according to the Indian Foreign Ministry.

This was the second batch of humanitarian assistance from New Delhi to Kabul following the Taliban takeover in August.India sent 1.6 tons of medicines to the country last month.

“The Government of India has committed to provide humanitarian assistance consisting of food grains, one million doses of COVID vaccine and essential life-saving drugs,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “In coming weeks, we would be undertaking supply of wheat and the remaining medical assistance.”

India has said that it plans to ship 50,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan and has requested Pakistan’s help in delivering it through its territory.

Although Islamabad has denied India commercial or other transport links to Afghanistan for years, it agreed to New Delhi’s request in November after Taliban officials asked Islamabad to allow the transit.

Both sides are reported to be sorting out the modalities of the transportation — the wheat would go via the Wagah land border between India and Pakistan that lies close to India’s grain producing regions.

Nearly 23 million Afghans, more than half the country’s population, are facing acute food shortages, according to the World Food Program. Nine million are on the brink of starvation and more than 3 million children are at the risk of malnutrition.

India’s effort to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan is seen as part of a diplomatic initiative to engage with the country, where it has been marginalized in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover.

Over the last two decades, India has invested billions in development projects in a bid to build “soft power” in Afghanistan, but its position suffered a huge blow with the withdrawal of U.S. troops last year.

New Delhi stressed the need to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghans at a meeting of officials from regional countries it hosted in November. 
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As the omicron variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the globe, India Monday began its inoculation program for teenagers,15-to-18-years old. Also Monday, the country’s health ministry announced 33,750 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours.  

France is inaugurating several new restrictions Monday to fight the rising number of new infections. Included among the new regulations are curbs on large gatherings that will now be limited to 5,000 people outdoors and 2,000 indoors.  

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Monday that the country has recorded its first deaths of omicron patients. The news agency said it is “unclear” if omicron was “the direct cause” of the deaths of the patients who were both in their 90s.

“The omicron variant is here,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet said in a televised address Sunday, announcing a fourth COVID shot for the elderly and medical workers. Some public health officials are leery of the aggressive move and possible side effects.  

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Monday that it has recorded more than 290 million global COVID cases and 5.4 million deaths. The center said more than 9 billion vaccines have been administered.  

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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India’s move to block the flow of foreign funds to the Missionaries of Charity comes amid a pushback by right-wing Hindu nationalists who accuse Christian missionaries of converting Hindus against their will or by offering bribes.

The group is among the most prominent of thousands of nonprofits, religious charities and rights groups facing a funding ban under rules passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration as part of tighter scrutiny of these groups under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.

The effective freeze on the charity’s foreign donations is being seen by critics as part of the targeting of religious minorities by Hindu hardliners since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.

“If you want to create an impact, you pick icons. When you target visible and revered icons, its shock value is far greater and there is nothing in India more prominent, more trusted and respected than the Missionaries of Charity,” said Valson Thampu, former principal of one of India’s top colleges, St. Stephen’s.

In the seven decades since it was first started by Mother Teresa in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, the Missionaries of Charity has won global recognition for humanitarian work among the poorest people. In India, it runs homes for abandoned children and clinics and hospices in many states.

The Home Ministry has said it is not renewing Missionaries of Charities’ license to receive foreign funds because of “adverse inputs.” It did not say what these inputs were. The overseas donations of millions of dollars are a key funding source for the charity’s programs.

The funding ban came days after police filed a complaint against the director of a children’s home run by the Missionaries of Charity in the western Gujarat state for allegedly attempting to convert young girls to Christianity. Nuns from the home have denied the charges.

The organizations whose licenses to access foreign funds have not been renewed include Christian and Muslim nonprofits, groups working with tribal communities or on human rights issues, particularly those that have been critical of the government, political analysts say. Greenpeace and Amnesty International are among those whose accounts have been frozen.

The ban on the foreign funding of the Missionaries of Charity has taken many aback.

“It is shocking that the charity with their long record of service among the destitute and poor has not been spared. By targeting it they are sending a clear message to others that anybody can be touched.” Niranjan Sahoo, a political analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, said. 

“This is completely choking the space in a country that is still secular and allows people to propagate their religion. Cutting off sources of funding ensures that those rights cannot be exercised,” he said.

Critics point to growing religious polarization in India since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. However, while attention has often focused on attacks on Muslims by Hindu vigilante groups, Christian groups say attacks targeting their community, who make up about 2.4% of India’s population, have also been rising.

The targeting of Christians is linked to the ire among the Hindu right against religious conversions, an issue that has become politically charged since the BJP came to power, according to analysts. 

According to a report by the United Christian Forum, a Christian rights protection body, the number of alleged violent attacks against Christians in India rose to 486 in 2021 from 279 in 2020.

Most of them were reported from states ruled by the BJP and have included disruptions of Christmas celebrations, alleged attacks on pastors and vandalizing a statue of Jesus. Such attacks are part of a broad shift that is making religious minorities apprehensive, some Christians say.

“When the BJP is in power, the empowerment of fringe elements is massive and there is complicity of state agencies like the police. Though some say these are only fringe elements, I say that their numbers are still huge in a country of 1.3 billion,” John Dayal, a Christian activist in New Delhi, said. 

“And when you block funding of an organization founded by someone of the stature of Mother Teresa, should we not be afraid?” he added. 

The ruling BJP has repeatedly said that it protects the rights of all citizens and minorities.

However, in recent years several states have passed or proposed laws to restrict religious conversion through marriage.

While several states already have anti-conversion laws in place, the lower house in the legislature in the southern state of Karnataka, which is ruled by the BJP, became the latest such body to pass a tough bill that proposes prison terms for up to 10 years for unlawful conversions.

“The electoral appeal of the BJP is directed on the idea of cultural nationalism and to create this fear that these two minority communities, Christians and Muslims, if allowed free rein, will eliminate Hinduism and therefore it is necessary to hold them on a leash and the BJP is the only party that can do it,” Thampu said. 

It is unclear how much the drying up of foreign donations will affect the work of the Missionaries of Charity, who also receive domestic donations. But at least one state run by a regional party has directed that the group’s work should not suffer. 

In the eastern Orissa state, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik asked officials to use state government funds to mitigate problems faced by the charitable organization and ensure that residents of homes and orphanages it runs do not suffer from lack of food or health issues.

 
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A stampede at a popular Hindu shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 12 people and injured 13 others on New Year’s Day, officials said.

An investigation has been ordered into what caused the stampede early Saturday at the Mata Vaishnav Devi shrine, where thousands of Hindu devotees were gathered to pay their respect in the hilly town of Katra near southern Jammu city.

Mahesh, a devotee who gave only one name, said the stampede occurred near one of the gates where pilgrims entered and exited the route to the shrine.

“Something happened near one of the gates and I found myself under a crush of people. I suffocated and fell but somehow managed to stand up,” he said. “I saw people moving over the bodies. It was a horrifying sight, but I managed to help in rescuing some injured people.”

Another devotee named Priyansh said he and 10 friends from New Delhi arrived Friday night to visit the shrine and that two of his friends died in the incident.

“I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi expressed his condolences in a message on Twitter.

“Extremely saddened by the loss of lives due to a stampede,” Modi wrote.

Pilgrims often trek on foot to reach the hilltop temple, which is one of the most visited shrines in northern India.

Deadly stampedes are fairly common during Indian religious festivals, as large crowds, sometimes in the millions, gather in small areas with few safety or crowd control measures.

In 2013, pilgrims visiting a temple for a popular Hindu festival in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state stampeded amid fears that a bridge would collapse, and at least 115 people were crushed to death or died in the river below.

More than 100 Hindu devotees died in 2011 in a stampede at a religious festival in the southern Indian state of Kerala. 

 
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Afghan women who served in the country’s military are speaking out about how their life has changed under the Taliban.

“I feel like I am in prison,” said Jamila, 28, a former Afghan military officer in the western city of Herat. “I have to be at home. I can’t work or go out. I am so afraid.” 

More than 6,300 women served in the former Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). Now they face not only threats to their life as former members of the military but also the Taliban’s imposed restrictions on their gender. 

“We have no hope that things would change. I do not think that Afghan military women have any future under the Taliban,” said Jamila, who did not want her real name to be revealed for fear of reprisals.

The Taliban, who seized power after the Afghan government collapsed on August 15, have imposed repressive rules on women, including banning women from work, secondary education, and long-distance travel. 

Human Rights Watch and the United Nations accused the Taliban in November of the summary killing of more than 100 former Afghan security officials despite the group’s promise of general amnesty. 

Jamila served for 10 years in the 207th Zafar (Victory) Corps of the Afghan National Army, headquartered in Herat province. She says she now hears news every day of someone else who was killed or disappeared. 

“I fear that they (the Taliban) might find me and kill me,” she said. 

Despite assurances from senior Taliban leaders that the group plans no retribution killings, Jamila said their word cannot be trusted. 

The more than 6,300 women who served as security forces were a small fraction of the country’s 300,000-strong force, but their careers represented a significant cultural shift for the conservative country. 

Washington’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, reported in July that 4,253 women served in the police, 1,913 in the army and 146 in the air force.

Living in fear 

Now, some of them are on the run. 

“We have been moving from one place to another to avoid being identified,” Jamila said. 

Serving in the Afghan military was always a significant risk for the women, whose families sometimes opposed their work. 

“Despite the enormous obstacles,” said a SIGAR report in February 2021, Afghan women continued to join ANDSF “often at a great personal risk.”

Jamila, a mother of two, said that her family had opposed her joining the army. And, she said, they blame her for the hardships they now face. 

“They are telling me that you joined the army and that is why our lives are in danger.” 

Before the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, many women, government employees and social activists were killed in targeted attacks.

Of the seven Afghan women who were posthumously given the U.S. State Department’s 2021 International Women of Courage Award, three were working with Afghan security agencies.

A U.S. State Department press release issued in March 2021 stated that honorary awards were given “to seven leaders and activists from Afghanistan who were assassinated for their dedication to improving the lives of Afghans.”

Jamila said that after the Taliban takeover, some of her colleagues had escaped to Pakistan and Iran, but most of them remain in Afghanistan, living in fear. 

“The majority could not flee because they do not have money (or) passport, or (are) having other problems,” Jamila added. 

‘We fought them’ 

“I had no choice but to escape to Pakistan,” said a former Afghan army officer, 25, who did not want her identity to be disclosed for safety reasons.

The former officer, who was also posted in the Zafar Corps in Herat, said that she had to escape just after the fall of the city into the Taliban’s hands. “I went together with a family of my relatives and crossed to Pakistan.”

She said that most of the women who had served in the military in her province were in danger since “we fought them. They wanted to kill us, and we wanted to kill them.” 

She does not see any future for her fellow female veterans in Afghanistan, she said. “Forget about the idea that they will let us go to work. They do not even let girls go to school. They do not accept women to be part of the society.” 

The Taliban’s position on women’s rights had not changed from what she had heard about the group’s repressive rules in the 1990s, she added. 

Under the Taliban, in the late ’90s, women were denied education and employment. The militant group also forced women to cover themselves from head to toe and prevented women from leaving their houses without a male companion.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan women made some achievements. About 3.5 million girls were going to schools. About 30 percent of the civil servants and around 28 percent of parliamentarians were women. 

Afghan women’s rights activists worldwide have been protesting the Taliban takeover, which has curbed the rights and freedoms that Afghan women achieved over the past 20 years.

On Tuesday, dozens of women took to the streets of Kabul, demanding work, food and education.

Call for help 

“No one cares about us right now,” said the former army officer, adding that “NATO was supporting us. We were encouraged to join the army, but now we are forgotten.” 

She called on the international community to help relocate those women whose lives are at risk under the Taliban.

Hosna Jalil, Afghanistan’s former deputy minister for women affairs who also served as deputy interior minister from December 2018 to January 2021, said that Afghan women who were working in the security sector are at great risk. 

“Women (in the security sector), because their number was low and they can be identified easily, I think they are more vulnerable,” she said. 

Initiatives are underway to relocate some of the former Afghan military women to a safer place, Jalil said, “but the process, to tell you honestly, is very scattered and slow.” 

“And this is the reason that we lose them one by one,” Jalil said, referring to the targeted killings of former Afghan military personnel. 

 
…

Some Afghan refugees living in Turkey are turning to the ancient practice of shepherding as a way to make a living. VOA’s Eyyup Demir has this report narrated by Sirwan Kajjo.
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Pakistan confirmed Friday that four of its soldiers were killed in a gun battle with militants near the Afghan border.

The clash erupted when Pakistani troops raided a Pakistani Taliban hideout in the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan border district, according to a military statement.

The statement said security forces had captured “one terrorist along with weapons and ammunition” and lost four personnel in an intense exchange of fire that followed the raid.

Friday’s military statement did not share further details about the deadly encounter, which multiple sources said had occurred the day before.

The outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, confirmed in a Thursday statement that security forces had raided its base in the Waziristan area. It claimed the ensuing clashes had killed several Pakistani troops but did not inflict any TTP casualties.

Meanwhile, officials said Friday the death toll from an overnight roadside bombing in Quetta, the capital of southeastern Baluchistan province, had risen to at least six passersby.

There were no claims of responsibility for the attack that injured more than a dozen people, all civilians.

Baluchistan, the sparsely populated, natural resource-rich province, routinely experiences militant attacks against Pakistani security forces and civilians. The violence is often claimed by separatist Baluch militant groups, TTP and occasionally by extremists linked to the Islamic State group.

Authorities in Pakistan say TTP leaders plan anti-state activities from sanctuaries in Afghanistan after fleeing years of military operations against their strongholds on the Pakistani side.

Thousands of Pakistanis, including security forces, have been killed in TTP-claimed suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks over the past years.

The United States and the United Nations have listed TTP as a global terrorist group.

Pakistan recently engaged TTP militants in peace talks with the help of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, leading to a 30-day cease-fire.

The TTP, however, refused to extend the truce after it expired in early December, accusing Pakistani authorities of breaching terms of the deal. Since then, the group has resumed attacks on Pakistani troops and police forces, particularly in districts next to the Afghan border. 

 
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Days after Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers imposed travel restrictions on women, a new decree is recommending that barbershops refrain from shaving or trimming beards, saying such actions are forbidden in Islam. 

VOA has received a copy of the instructions that the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice issued this week. 

A Taliban official shared the original order in the Pashto language; however, its authenticity has not been publicly confirmed by senior leadership.

When contacted by VOA, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did not dispute the order’s authenticity but said he was still “trying to get information” about the decree.

The order cited several verses from the Quran and hadiths, or sayings, about following whatever the Prophet Muhammad has asked Muslims to do. 

“Growing a beard is a natural deed and the Sunnah [the way of life and legal precedent] of all Prophets and Islamic Sharia has repeatedly emphasized it,” according to the instructions.

The order was signed by the minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Sheikh Muhammad Khalid Haqqani. 

“Shaving or trimming a beard is forbidden under a unanimous decision by the religious scholars. Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, their followers, their successors, Mujahideen [holy warriors] and other scholars do not agree on shaving or trimming the beard. So, it is understood that shaving or trimming a beard is against human nature and the action is against Islamic Sharia,” according to the order. 

“In view of the above all workers of the barbershops are informed to keep in mind Islamic Sharia and Islamic injunctions while cutting hairs and serving their customers.” 

The order appears to stop short of the outright ban on trimming beards that the Taliban issued during their last government from 1996 to 2001. Taliban officials have said the group is working to encourage Afghans to adopt their strict interpretation of Islam.

“All provincial departments under the ministry are directed that having beards is one of the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad and all Muslims should follow Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad. All barbershop workers in the provinces are also instructed to keep in mind the instructions while trimming the beards of customers.” 

“Officials should also try to implement the order politely and while speaking to the people so the countrymen bring their lives in conformity with their religion, Islamic obligations and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad,” according to the order. 

“These instructions have been sent to you for implementation.” 

Barbers in Kabul said many people were not willing to shave their beards even before the Taliban issued the decree. 

A barber at a Kabul shop told VOA earlier in December that he has been doing only 20 percent of his previous business since the Taliban took over the city.

The Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital in mid-August. Since then, they have been introducing Islamic laws and banning mixed education of males and females. 
…