Indian author shot dead in Afghanistan

Sushmita Bandopadhyay, a Bengali woman who shot to fame with chronicles of her escape from Taliban, was  killed at Paktika in  Afghanistan on Thursday.

Bandopadhyay was reportedly shot dead by militants who tied down her husband Jaanbaz Khan and other members of her family before abducting her. Her body was dumped outside a religious school close to her house in the provincial capital of Kharana. 

Bandopadhyay recently returned to Afghanistan to live with her once estranged husband, a trader of dry fruits. The couple met around two decades ago when Khan was vending his wares as a door-to-door salesman in Kolkata.

Bandopadhyay, who named herself Sayed Kamala after marriage in 1991, reportedly worked as a health worker in Paktika. She was filming lives of local women as part of her work. While no group has claimed responsibility for the killing, security experts in India pointed out that in the war-torn Afghanistan, people often hire killers impersonating as militants to settle personal scores. Such killings are common, they said.

Bandopadhyay’s brother-in-law Isha Khan had suffered a similar fate. His body was found inside a rundown theatre in Kolkata under mysterious circumstances a few days after he was allegedly killed with a sharp weapon.

Bandopadhyay, a political science graduate from Calcutta University, enjoyed a brief fame after “Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou (Kabuliwala’s Bengali wife),” a memoir of her escape from the clutches of the Taliban in 1995, went on to become a bestseller. The book was published in 2000.

A section of her and Khan’s family had claimed the account to be fake. The book was made into a Hindi film titled Escape From Taliban.

During her glory days, Bandopadhyay spoke about her tumultuous relationship with Khan. The book was mired in controversy as most critics questioned the need for graphic details of her intimate relationship with Khan.

None of her relatives in Kolkata could be traced, including a younger brother whom she had accused of stealing money for substance abuse.