Jan 30, 2012, 12:45 GMT
Kunduz, Afghanistan - An Afghan woman was choked to death by her husband - a local militiaman - and mother-in-law for delivering a baby girl for the third time in northern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.
'Storay, a 30-year-old mother of three, was choked to death by her husband and her mother-in-law in a remote village in Khanabad district of Kunduz province,' police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini told dpa.
Khanabad district governor Sofi Habib said that Sher Mohammad, the husband of the deceased woman who was killed, is an active member of a pro-government local militia group with around 20 to 30 armed gunmen in the district.
'She was told by her husband that if she delivered another baby girl, he would kill her,' police official Hussaini said.
The woman gave birth to the third girl three months ago.
'We have arrested Storay's mother-in-law and we are looking for her husband, too, who is on the run,' Hussaini said.
Afghan government with the support of the international troops has armed villagers in many far-flung areas with weapons to fight the Taliban in their own neighbourhood since two years.
The initiative has been widely criticized by rights activists for the violation of human rights by the local militiamen who are often accused of extorting money, raping women and killing their rivals.
Last Novemeber, similar gunmen threw acid on the face of three girls and their parents in the same Kunduz province after the family rejected the proposal by a local militia leader to marry the eldest daughter.
Last month, a teenage girl was rescued by police in the neighbouring province of Baghlan after her in-laws tortured and kept her in a toilet for six months because she refused to prostitute herself.
Rights activists have constantly raised concerns over the treatment of women in Afghan society.
A United Nations report in 2010 said nearly one-third of all Afghan women are exposed to some level of physical and psychological violence and an estimated 25 per cent suffer sexual abuse.
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