In a rare case of reversal of brutality, enraged villagers stoned to death a senior Taliban commander and his bodyguard after the duo shot dead a 60-year-old man in southern Afghanistan.
The stoning episode happened on Sunday evening in Helmand province when two Taliban men roared up on a motorcycle to a mosque in the village of Trekh Zaber, where Yaar Mohammad and his two sons were waiting to celebrate Iftar, after breaking fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
The militants ordered Mohammad to come to them and shot him point blank, killing him instantly, the New York Times quoted Haji Hayatullah, a district council member, as saying.
As their father fell to the bullets, his two sons pounced on the motorcycle-borne terrorists, pulling them down. Other villagers joined the youths in stoning the men to death.
The two killers were later identified as a top Taliban commander of the region and his bodyguard.
Officials said that Mohammad had received threats from Taliban, but apart from being friends with a former provincial governor, he had no official role in the government.
The case, local officials said, was a rare case of brutality aimed at the Taliban with the local provincial governor saying that it indicated "that people won't tolerate Taliban's barbaric actions anymore."
