Clean-Shaven Man Beaten By Taliban

Mohammed Zaheer arrived in Kabul to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha with his family, but found himself the target of the Taliban’s wrath. His crime: He was clean-shaven.

“I live in Pakistan and I just wanted to visit my family,” a bruised Zaheer said Sunday, a day after he said Taliban religious police dragged him from a bus and beat him with an electrical cable.

According to the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic rule, it is a crime for a man to trim his beard. Zaheer was clean-shaven when he left the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar on Saturday morning and by late evening he had only a stubble.

Taliban religious police, who roam the city in search of violators, caught him when he stepped off a bus.

On Sunday, they beat 14 women Sunday for not wearing the burqa, clothing that covers them from head to toe. Such beatings have become a daily occurrence in the capital in recent months.