An Indian woman whose memoir about life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan was turned into a Bollywood movie has been shot dead.
Suspected Taliban arrived at Sushmita Banerjee's home in Daygan Sorqala village in eastern Paktika province before dawn and seized her husband Jaanbaz Khan when he opened the door, a provincial police chief said.
He was blindfolded and bound before the author was dragged outside into the road and shot at least 15 times, police chief General Dawlat Khan Zadran said.
The 49-year-old from Kolkata, wrote A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife, which later became the basis for the 2003 film "Escape From Taliban."
The book described how she met her husband in India and agreed to marry him despite her parents' disapproval and the fact that he was Muslim while she was Hindu.
She moved to Afghanistan as Jaanbaz's second wife, only to find that life became unbearable as the Taliban increased their hold over the country between their rise to power in 1994 and their overthrow in 2001.
The Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam placed severe restrictions on women, including forcing them to wear all-encompassing burqas, banning them from working and prohibiting girls from attending schools.
Ms Banerjee was forced to close the medicines dispensary she was operating and whipped for refusing to wear a burqa, according to her book.
The Taliban are influential in Paktika province, but a spokesman contacted by Reuters denied his fighters carried out the killing.
Zafar Khan, the father of Jaanbaz's first wife, said Banerjee was beloved in the area and that many residents were upset that a peaceful woman had been targeted.
The killing of the author is the latest in a string of attacks on prominent women in Afghanistan, adding to fears about what will happen to women's rights in a country where many are barely allowed outside the house once US-led foreign forces fully withdraw next year.
