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Lieutenant-Colonel Malalai Kakar was Afghanistan’s highest-ranking female police officer.She was a champion of oppressed women in the wartorn state and portrayed in the international media as something of a fearless feminist action hero. As Kandahar’s deputy commander of police she vigorously enforced her own brand of justice, unafraid to beat criminals that she caught. Kakar carried on with her duties despite attempts on her life and a succession of death threats. Even the Taleban acknowledged her bravery in their death threats.Kakar was the first woman to become a police detective in the ultraconservative Kandahar — a dangerous place for any police officer let alone a woman. Kandahar, the birthplace of Taleban extremism, is the largest city in southern Afghanistan and its surrounding province of the same name has a population of about 900,000.Kakar rose through the ranks to become the country’s most prominent policewoman as the head of the crimes against women department of the Kandahar police, leading a team of nearly a dozen policewomen. Her main roles were to sort out family disputes, protect women from domestic violence and run the women’s prison.Since 2001 the Afghan Government has been rebuilding the police force with international assistance. Women have been encouraged to join the force to handle crimes against women because Afghan culture forbids men from approaching another man’s wife. There are a few hundred female officers in a force of 80,000.Known simply as Malalai in Kandahar, Kakar achieved legendary status in the province after killing three assassins in a shoot-out. In 2004 the police chief, Khan Mohammed, described her as “truly another Malalai” in reference to her namesake, a national heroine who rallied the Afghan Army in 1880 to defeat British invaders before being killed on the battlefield.Kakar did not exploit her femininity. She presented herself as a typical, tough-talking, swearing officer and did not hesitate to dispense instant justice. On one occasion she beat a man who she discovered had been keeping his wife in chains in his basement. “I’m very famous as a dangerous person in Kandahar,” Kakar once said. “People fear me. If I go near the shops, they take their stuff and leave.”However, with the Taleban’s resurgence in the past couple of years her vocation had become increasingly dangerous and on many occasions the Taleban had posted a “night letter” on the door of her home warning her to quit the force “or else”. Other policewomen have been targeted — Bibi Hoor, from the western province of Herat, was killed in June — and more than 750 officers, including a handful of policewomen, have been killed in the past six months.
Kakar was slightly built; she stood just over 5ft tall, but was a woman of remarkable determination. She was the first woman to graduate from the Kandahar police academy, in 1982. Her father, a policeman, recruited her into the force at 15 — treating her no differently from her brothers who were also officers.After the Taleban came to power in the mid-1990s and put her on their hitlist, she went into hiding. She was not sure if they just wanted to see the woman who had killed three Taleban fighters in the 1980s or if they actually wanted to arrest her.After fleeing to Pakistan, she married a UN worker in an arranged marriage-which proved to be more successful than many of those she had to deal with in the force-and they started a family. Once the Taleban were removed from power in 2001 she returned to Afghanistan and the police force with the support of her husband.“This isn’t an easy job but it is important that women do it,” she told Marie Claire magazine. “We need to be a part of the new Afghanistan.”At home she played the traditional role of a wife and a devoted mother of six. In the mornings she cooked her children breakfast and got them ready for school or their household duties. She spent a long time saying goodbye to them because she could never be sure what would happen. She did not discuss police work with them and tried to prevent them worrying about the death threats by rising early to take the night-time threats off her door.She was usually accompanied to work by her younger brother, a fellow officer, changing their route every few days. She sometimes wore a burka which could hide both her identity and her firearm. Her family lived in an army compound for greater protection but this was not enough to protect her from the Taleban. Kakar was killed by two members of the Taleban on a motorcycle who shot her in the head as she left for work. Her 18-year-old son, who was preparing to drive her, was also shot and later died in hospital. She is survived by five of her children and her husband.Her murder was a stark reminder of the dangers posed by an emboldened Taleban, who are fanatically opposed to women being educated and allowed to work, and is a setback for the growing women’s movement in Afghanistan.Malalai Kakar, police officer, was shot dead on September 28, 2008, aged 45
PS:The Taliban are SCARED and THREATENED by a WOMAN....That's why they killed her....What a sorry bunch of cowards and loosers....Women in Afghanistan are more powerful than taliban.....That's a FACT...They wont be able to stop the will of the people in the end....
As in the days of Noah...
