They were arrested by the Taliban’s morality police on Friday while playing music during a circumcision ceremony in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, according to Abdur-Rahman Hanif, spokesman for the Taliban’s local branch in charge of “promoting virtue and preventing vice”.
Those arrested will be heard further and the matter investigated.
Since the Taliban took power in 2021, laws and regulations have been introduced that reflect their strict interpretation of Islam, including bans on playing music in public. Television and radio have been banned from playing music and instruments have been burned.