ISLAMABAD: The National Resistance Front (NRF), an armed anti-Taliban resistance group, has claimed that the Taliban beheaded three of their fighters after capturing them in the Bazarak district of Panjshir.

For its part, the Taliban interior ministry rejected on Sunday reports that their military forces have beheaded three members of an anti-Taliban armed resistance group in the valley of Panjshir.

Ministry spokesperson Abdul Nafay Takoor made the remarks in response to a question during a televised press conference in Kabul.

At the event, Takoor spoke about the Taliban’s achievements in countering narcotics and fighting crime.

“In the past one month, only in Kabul, more than 2,000 individuals have been arrested in connection to different crimes,” the spokesperson said.

The NRF called it a “war crime” and said the victims were butchered with their hands tied.

The Taliban have deployed thousands of fighters armed with US military equipment to suppress their opponents in Afghanistan’s Panjshir valley, where an armed struggle has been taking place since the country’s collapse to the hardliners last year.

There are unconfirmed reports that the Taliban forces have arbitrarily detained and harassed local residents as they face resistance from the armed group hiding among the mountain peaks.

On Saturday, a Taliban official confirmed that 30 to 40 civilians have been arrested in the province recently.

A UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan has warned that violations in Panjshir and other Afghan provinces are being taken very seriously.