Sushmita Banerjee, also known as Sushmita Bandhopadhyay and Sayeda Kamala (1963/1964 – 4/5 September 2013), was a writer and activist from India. Her works include the memoir ''Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou'' (''A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife''; 1997) based on her experience of marrying an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pa ...

and her time in Afghanistan during

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pas ...

rule. The story was used as the basis for the

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

film ''

Escape from Taliban ''Escape from Taliban'' is a 2003 Indian film directed by Ujjwal Chatterjee. The film is based on the story ''A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife'' by Sushmita Banerjee, who fled Afghanistan in 1995 after six years of living there with her Afghan husba ...

''. She was killed at age 57 by suspected Taliban militants during the evening of 4 September or in the early morning hours of 5 September 2013, outside her home in Paktika Province, Afghanistan.

Life

Sushmita Banerjee was born in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

(present-day

Kolkata, India Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commerc ...

) to a middle-class Bengali family. Her father worked in the civil defense department and her mother was a homemaker. She was the only sister to her three brothers. She first met her future husband Janbaz Khan, an Afghan businessman, at a theatre rehearsal in Calcutta and married him on 2 July 1988. The marriage took place secretly in Kolkata, as she feared her parents would object. When her parents tried to get them divorced, she fled to Afghanistan with Khan. She then discovered that her husband had a first wife, Gulguti. In her book, Gulguti is described as one of her brother-in-law's wives. Although shocked, she continued to live in Khan's ancestral house in Patiya village, with her three brothers-in-law, their wives, and children. Khan later returned to Kolkata to continue his business, but Banerjee could not return. Banerjee made two abortive attempts to flee Afghanistan. She was caught and held under house arrest. A

fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist ...

was issued against her and she was scheduled to die on 22 July 1995. With the help of the village headman, she finally fled. She reached Kabul, and took a flight back to Kolkata on 12 August 1995. She lived in India until 2013, and published several books. After returning to Afghanistan, she worked as a health worker in

Paktika Province Paktika (Pashto/ Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. Forming part of the larger Loya Paktia region, Paktika has a population of about 789,000, mostly ethnic Pashtuns. The town of Sharan ...

in southeastern Afghanistan, and began filming the lives of local women.

Death

According to Afghan police, suspected Taliban terrorists forced entry into her house in Paktika on the night of 4 September 2013. They bound her husband and absconded with her. Her corpse was found early the next day on the outskirts of provincial capital

Sharana Sharana ( ps, ښرنه) or Sharan ( fa, شاران) is the capital of Paktika Province, Afghanistan. It is located at an altitude of 2,200 meters. Its population was estimated to be 2,200 in 2006. The city of Sharana has a population of 15,651 ( ...

. The body had 20 bullet hole marks. Police surmised she might have been targeted for various reasons. The Taliban denied involvement. Later, a spokesman for a renegade Taliban militia group announced it had killed Banerjee because they believed she was "an Indian spy".

Books

Sushmita Banerjee wrote ''Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou'' ("A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife") in 1995. In 2003, ''

'', a

film, starring

Manisha Koirala Manisha Koirala (; born 16 August 1970) is a Nepalese actress who works in Indian films, predominantly in Hindi and Tamil films and has also worked in few Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Nepali and English films. Known for her work in both comme ...

was made based on the book. She authored ''Talibani Atyachar—Deshe o Bideshe'' (Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Abroad), ''Mullah Omar, Taliban O Ami'' (Mullah Omar, Taliban and I) (2000), ''Ek Borno Mithya Noi'' (''Not a Word is a Lie'') (2001) and ''Sabhyatar Sesh Punyabani'' (The Swansong of Civilisation).

References

External links

Biography of Sushmita Banerjee
2013, news.biharprabha.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Banejee, Sushmita 1960s births 2013 deaths 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian writers Bengali writers Bengali-language writers Writers from Kolkata Indian women's rights activists Indian women activists People murdered in Afghanistan People killed by the Taliban Indian expatriates in Afghanistan Violence against women in Afghanistan People from Paktika Province Incidents of violence against women Manslaughter victims Women writers from West Bengal Indian people murdered abroad