Taliban shoots Afghan couple who eloped

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 14 (UPI) -- A young Afghan woman who disobeyed her parents' wishes by running away with the man she chose was shot by the Taliban with her lover, officials say.

The couple was publicly executed Monday, The Guardian reported. Officials in Nimroz, a conservative province in the southwest, identified the woman as Gul Pecha, described as in her late teens, and the man as Abdul Aziz, 21, the British newspaper said.

Officials said they were shot by a firing squad outside the mosque in Lokhi, the village where they had lived.

The woman's parents tracked the couple down after they left the village and told the Taliban about their conduct, the provincial police chief, Abdul Jabar Pardeli, said.

The execution was "against Islam, against the law and against the Constitution," said the governor of Nimroz, Ghulam Dastageer Azad.