The execution earlier this week of a 14-year-old girl and her boyfriend in front of their village mosque - while villagers looked on - was a true modern day Romeo and Juliet scenario with a tragic ending.
The girl, called Gulsima, had been unhappily engaged to marry when she fell in love with Aziz, aged 17. The pair attempted to escape the village of Lokhi and planned to run away to Iran.
Their dreams were shattered however, when they were captured and dragged back into the village.
After two full days of deliberation, a council of elders were unable to decide how to resolve the dispute. Half the elders favoured some way of allowing them to marry, while the other half favoured execution. As the council was deadlocked, local Taliban militants stepped in, and overruled the village leaders. They declared the lovers should be executed.
"Three Taliban mullahs brought them to the local mosque and they passed a fatwa (religious decree) that they must be killed. They were shot and killed in front of the mosque in public," Ghulam Dastageer Azad, governor of the province said. He added that the act was an "insult to Islam".
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission described the killings as the "worst act against mankind"
It is unlikely this story will make major headlines.
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