PULI ALAM (Afghanistan): Taliban militants lashed two men in public on Saturday, witnesses and officials said, just weeks after a video surfaced of a woman being executed for adultery before a crowd of cheering men.

The men received 40 lashes each with a leather whip in front of more than a hundred people in Shash Qala village of Charkh district in Logar province, some 70kms south of Kabul.

They were arrested by Taliban insurgents while trying to kidnap the son of a rich man three days earlier, Bashir, a villager, said.

“This morning, the Taliban called people on loudspeakers to gather and watch two men being lashed by them for trying to kidnap a 10-year old boy,” Bashir said.

“They were lashed 40 times each by two armed Taliban whose faces were covered.” Charkh district chief Farooq Humayun said the local administration was aware of the incident and an investigation was under way.—AFP