Militants in Gilan District of Ghazni Province have abducted 20 civilians on their way to Jaghori. According to local elders and Government officials, local Taliban militants have stopped several vehicles and abducted 20 people on their way home from Kabul to Jaghori and Malistan Districts. Travelers say militants linked with Taliban stop vehicles on daily basis and torture or extract money from people.

Such incidents are common in Gilan District, where residents of Malistan and Jaghori districts have to cross while traveling to Kabul or Ghazni cities. However, what has been the more disturbing point about these bullying of ordinary people is the fact that Jaghori and Malistan are home to people from Hazara ethnicity and the targeted abductions of the Taliban has been cause for larger troubles in the area for years. Since the insurgency intensified in 2007, the roads have become less secure and people are stopped regularly. Several have been killed or disappeared without any serious government attempt to provide security on the way. Qarabagh District is an ethnically diverse area, however with clear residential limits and ethnic boundaries. Most of the incidents either occur in Qarabagh or Gilan districts, where Taliban have influence. Such incidents show the larger domestic problem with Taliban—they want to impose themselves on all Afghans in a fascistic ethno-supremacist way. The regular incidents of abduction and bullying of people from particular ethnic background by Taliban militants show their real face—with the fact that nothing has changed from what the country went through under the dark era of Taliban rule.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid talking to media said he was unaware of these bullying and abductions. It is not the first incident, rather a regular story for residents of Jaghori and Malistan districts of Ghazni for last six years. On several occasions, it has gone close to causing larger conflict between people of two ethnic groups in the province.

Not only the government needs to pay serious attention to this issue by deploying security forces in the troubled areas, but all tribal elders, political leaders and members of parliament from Ghazni need to play their role in controlling the issue becoming a larger conflict. We cannot expect the Taliban to stop these bullying, abduction, torture and money extraction from people, as they target civilians with their roadside bombs and suicide bombers. However, they must understand the fact of Afghanistan’s social reality that they cannot impose themselves upon people.