Kabul - Taliban militants publicly executed a young couple for eloping in western Afghanistan, after the family of the young woman handed the pair over for Taliban justice. Gholam Dastagir Azaad, the provincial governor for western Nimruz province, said relatives had found the couple hiding in a house in Khash Rud district of the province after they eloped.

The family then delivered the couple to Taliban militants in Lokhi area, some 40 kilometres from the district centre.

"The militants senselessly killed both the boy and the girl by gunshots in front a crowd of villagers in an open area," Azaad told the German Press Agency (dpa)