Taliban denies responsibility of Sushmita Banerjee’s killing.

An Indian woman author who wrote a popular memoir about her escape from the Taliban was shot dead in Afghanistan’s Paktika province on Thursday by suspected members of the Islamist militia.

As reported by New York times, Eighteen years after militant leaders sentenced her to death after she refused to wear a burqa in public, the attackers on Thursday dragged the 49-year-old Banerjee outside her home, took her to Al Jihad madrasa in Sarrai Kala village and was shot 25 times.

Banerjee’s killing was the latest in a row of attacks on prominent women in Afghanistan, which added fears to women’s rights in a country, where many are barely allowed outside the house and will face impediment after US-led foreign forces will be fully withdraw in 2014.

In the latest developments reported by Zee media, the Taliban has denied responsibility for her death. Notably, they are often reluctant to own up women’s killing.

Married to an Afghan businessman, Sushmita Banerjee, 49, was killed outside her home. The book about her dramatic escape in 1995 became a best-seller in India and was made into a Bollywood film in 2003.

Banerjee had recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with her husband.

Banerjee became well-known in India for her memoir, ‘A Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife’, which recounted her life in Afghanistan with her husband Jaanbaz Khan and her escape.

She was the subject of the 2003 Bollywood film, “Escape From Taliban”. Starring actress Manisha Koirala, the film described itself as a “story of a woman who dares Taliban”.

As per reports, the Taliban militia, during its rule, had placed severe restrictions on women. It forced them to wear burqas, banned them from working and prohibited girls from attending schools. The Islamist rulers’ harsh interpretation of their religion meant many women could not get proper medical care because the only physicians available were men who in most hospitals were allowed to examine women only if they were fully clothed.