Two suspects in the mysterious killing of four women in Afghanistan’s northern Mazar-i-Sharif city have been arrested, the Taliban’s interior ministry spokesperson Qari Saeed Khosty said Saturday.

The suspects had confessed during initial interrogation that they had invited the victims to a house before the killings, Mr Khosty said, but declined to give further details.

The four women, including a civil society activist identified as Frozan Safi, were found dead in a house in the Shahrak Khalid area within the week.

Taliban’s Director of Information and Culture department told dpa on Friday that bodies of two women and two men were found in an incident that resulted from a personal feud.

Family members of Ms Safi told local broadcaster, Rukhshana Media that she had been summoned for evacuation to Germany via a third country more than two weeks ago.

They did not hear from her until her body was identified at a hospital in the city.

Associate director of Human Rights Watch, Heather Barr, said there had been a “terrifying escalation in abuses against women’s rights activists’’ since the Taliban took over power in August. 

(dpa/NAN)