Reports come in that Taliban beheaded a junior volleyball player who was in the Afghan women’s national team: Read to know more

Mahjabin Hakimi was a player in the Afghan junior women's national volleyball team. A coach has claimed that she was beheaded by the Taliban earlier this month.

Taliban militants allegedly beheaded a fellow player of the Afghan junior women's national volleyball team, a coach said the Persian Independent.

In an interview, coach Suraya Afzali (name changed) said a woman player called Mahjabin Hakimi was murdered by the Taliban earlier in October, but nobody knew about the gruesome murder as the insurgents had terrorized her family not to speak about it.

Mahjabin played for the Kabul Municipality Volleyball Club before the fall of the Ashraf Ghani government, and was one of the club's main players. Then, a few days ago, images of what seemed to be her detached head and bloodied neck turned up on social media.

The coach of the Afghan women's national volleyball team told that only two of the team's players was able to flee from the country before the Taliban strangled full control in August. Mahjabin Hakimi was among the many other tragic women sportspersons who were left behind.

Since their takeover, the Taliban have begun to identify and hunt down women athletes; the militants have been even more fond of members of the Afghan women's volleyball team, who contended in foreign and domestic competitions and arrived in media programs in the past, alleged Afzali.

"All the players of the volleyball team and the rest of the women athletes are in a bad situation and in despair and fear," Afzali told the Persian Independent. "Everyone has been forced to flee and live underground."

The Afghan national women's volleyball team was founded in 1978 and has long been a symbol of hope for young girls in the country. However, Mahjabin's death has fuelled anxieties of being targeted by the Taliban. Actions by members of the team to earn the support of foreign organisations and nations to leave Afghanistan have so far been futile.

Last week, FIFA and the Qatar government successfully vacated as many as 100 women footballers, comprising members of the national football team, and their family members from Afghanistan.

With the Taliban taking custody of Afghanistan, all women's activities in the sports, political and social domains have been discontinued. The vast plurality of Afghan girls continues to be banned from attending secondary school.