Kabul, Jan 31: An Afghan woman was arrested for 'helping strangle her daughter-in-law to death because she gave birth to an 'undesired' third daughter'.
Mother-in-law Wali Hazrata is said to have tied the feet of 22-year-old Stori, which allowed the victim's local militia member husband Sher Mohammad to strangle her, reports Daily Mail.
The two-month-old baby girl was not hurt in the incident, in the village of Mahfalay, in the north eastern Kunduz province's Khanabad district, on Saturday.
Contradictory reports have emerged of the incident, with some media saying it was the woman's second daughter that sparked her murder.
But Khanabad's police chief, Sufi Habib, told the BBC: 'The mother gave birth to a third girl two months ago.
'The husband and mother-in-law strangled her for giving birth to a third daughter.'
The murdered woman's husband has since fled, and Hazrata remains in custody.
Police believe the murder took place because Stori gave birth to another girl, who are generally seen as a burden in Afghan society.
The husband is believed to be a fighter with an illegal armed militia, and local villagers said Stori often asked her him to lay down his weapons.
One neighbour said: 'She lived in a hell not a house. But then she also asked her husband to stay home and avoid going out with these thugs.'
Afghan women's rights activists highlighted the incident.
Nadira Gya, director for Kunduz Women's affairs, said: 'It was a brutal crime committed against an innocent woman.'
Local religious and tribal elders in the district also condemned the killing, saying it was an act of ignorance, and calling it a crime against Islam, humanity and women.
They called for immediate punishment. Wali Hazrata appears to have made no public comment as yet.
Violence and abuse against women continues to be a major problem in Afghanistan, a decade after U.S.-led troops brought down the Taliban regime.
Last month, police found a teen bride who had been locked in a toilet for six months at her husband's house in neighboring Baghlan province.
She was burned and beaten, and had her fingernails pulled out.
British charity Oxfam said 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.
