Know more about Sushmita Banerjee, killed in cold blood by Taliban

New Delhi: Indian author Sushmita Banerjee, who rose to fame for her memoir Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou (The Bengali bride of a Kabuliwala) narrating her escape from the Taliban in 1995, was shot dead by militants at the Paktika province in Afghanistan. Sushmita Banerjee, a Hindu, was married to Jaanbaz Khan, a Muslim under the Special Marriage Act on July 2, 1988. Sushmita, then 27, did not convert to Islam. They married secretly, fearing parental objection. But her parents discovered the marriage and tried to get them divorced. This made them flee from Kolkata to Afghanistan, Jaanbaz's native land. Jaanbaz returned to Kolkata, where he had a business. Unfortunately, Susmita could not return because the Taliban would not allow it. She lived with her three brothers-in-law, their wives and her husband's first wife Gulgutti. She had married Jaanbaz 10 years ago. With the burgeoning Taliban power in Afghanistan, Banerjee witnessed fundamentalist changes occurring in the country. In a 2003 interview, she said that the plight of women in particular got worse. Women were banned from talking with men other than family members, they were not allowed outside home. Schools, colleges, and hospitals were shut down. Taliban men discovered her clinic and beat her severely in May 1995. Banerjee made two abortive attempts to flee Afghanistan. She was caught and kept in house arrest in the village. A fatwa was issued against her and she was scheduled to die on 22 July 1995. With the help of the village headman, she finally fled from the village, in the process killing three Taliban men with an AK-47 rifle. She reached Kabul, and took a flight back to Kolkata on 12 August 1995. She lived in India until 2013, and published several books. After returning to Afghanistan, she worked as a health worker in Paktika Province in southeastern Afghanistan, and also started to film the lives of local women. Banerjee wrote Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou in 1995. It recounted the tale of her love marriage to Jaanbaz Khan, her moving to Afghanistan in 1989, the adversities she faced in Talibani Afghanistan and her eventual escape back to Kolkata, India. In 2003, Escape from Taliban, a Bollywood film was made based on the book. She also authored Talibani Atyachar—Deshe o Bideshe (Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Abroad), Mullah Omar, Taliban O Ami (Mullah Omar, Taliban and I) (2000), Ek Borno Mithya Noi (Not a Word is a Lie) (2001) and Sabhyatar Sesh Punyabani (The Swansong of Civilisation).