Pak Taliban publicly execute couple for 'illicit relations'

Taliban militants executed a man and a woman in public on charges of having illicit relations, shooting them with Kalashnikov in front of their relatives, in Hangu district of troubled northwest Pakistan.

The shocking footage of the shooting incident which took place a few days back near the border of Orakzai Agency was on Friday made available to a Pakistani media outlet, the Dawn News channel reported.

The footage, made available to Dawn, shows the Taliban shooting the man, aged around 40 and a woman, who is about 45 years, at an open space in the presence of their relatives and a large crowd.

The woman is heard appealing to the Taliban, "Have mercy on me, please have mercy; the charges against me are false and no man has ever touched me".

The militants first shoot the woman by firing two bullets in her chest and later open a burst of Kalashnikov fire at both the woman and the man. But the woman is still seen breathing, and the Taliban start yelling that she is alive and issuing orders to "kill her, kill her".

Sources told the channel that the Taliban had asked the relatives of the woman and the man to present the two before them for questioning at a specified place. The relatives brought both of them to the Taliban, who killed them in cold blood.