Panjshir governor rejects claims of arbitrary arrests in the province

Hafiz Mohammad Agha Hakim, the Taliban administration’s governor of Panjshir, has rejected claims of arbitrary arrests in the province, saying no cases of arbitrary detention or disappearances have been recorded in the past three years.

In an interview with Tolo News, he said arrests in Panjshir are carried out only in criminal cases or on the basis of court orders, describing the process as part of the normal work of government institutions. According to him, no such incident has taken place during his tenure as governor of Panjshir.

The Panjshir governor also claimed that there are no armed opposition fighters in the province and that what is described as “resistance” is, in his view, mostly of a “media” nature. He further said Panjshir has become a safe and peaceful place since the Taliban returned to power, and that there is no rift between the people and the ruling administration.

Hakim said elsewhere in his remarks that more than 600 development projects have been implemented in different sectors since he began work in Panjshir. He also reported an increase in the number of tourists in the province, saying that nearly 300,000 tourists, including a number of foreigners, visited Panjshir this year.

According to the Panjshir governor, there are nearly 2,000 emerald sites in the province, and extraction is carried out under Taliban administration supervision and with the participation of local people. Panjshir is one of Afghanistan’s mountainous provinces in the northeast of the country, and its emerald mines are among the province’s well-known resources.