2 people arrested in case of Indian author Sushmita Banerjee's murder

Kabul, Sept 10: Two people have been reportedly arrested for the murder of Indian

Sushmita Banerjee, who was shot dead outside her home in the eastern Paktika province of Afghanistan. The militants, who barged into the Afghan home of Sushmita, asked her why she wrote nasty things about them, and then shot her dead, the victim's in-laws told her Kolkata-based relatives

According to the BBC, the two arrested are members of the Haqqani network. Sushmita was married to Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with him.

Militants arrived at her home in the provincial capital of Kharana, tied up her husband and other members of the family, took Sushmita out and shot her, police were quoted as saying to an international news channel.

Sushmita's book 'Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou' (A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife), about her escape from the Taliban in 1995, became a bestseller in India and was made into the Bollywood film "Escape From Taliban" in 2003. Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead outside her home in the eastern Paktika province of Afghanistan. The memoir focused on her life in Afghanistan with her husband and her escape from the terrorists. The film based on the book starred actress Manisha Koirala and was billed as a "story of a woman who dares (the) Taliban".

Taliban militants asked her why she wrote nasty things about them

Sushmita also wrote about her experiences in Afghanistan for Outlook magazine. She went to Afghanistan in 1989 after marrying Khan, whom she met in Kolkata. She wrote that "life was tolerable until the Taliban crackdown in 1993", when terrorists ordered her to close a dispensary she was running from her house, and "branded me a woman of poor morals".

She wrote that she escaped "sometime in early 1994" but her brothers-in-law tracked her down to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where she went to seek help from the Indian High Commission.

They took her back to Afghanistan.

OneIndia News

(With PTI inputs)