Taliban Chops Voters' Fingers

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Taliban chop ink-strained fingers of Afghan voters

London, August 22: Afghanistan’s top election monitoring organisation, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, has claimed that the Taliban had chopped off the fingers of at least two Afghan voters during the Presidential election which took place on Thursday (August 20).

Nader Nadery, the head of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, said Taliban insurgents attacked two voters in Kandahar shortly after voting on Thursday and cut off their ink-stained fingers.

Hundreds of Afghan voters exercised their exclusive right in the country's second-ever direct Presidential election earlier this week. However, the polling percentage remained low as compared to the 2001 elections, primarily due to the extremists’ threat.

While both Hamid Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah have claimed to be ahead in the early voting count, the turn out in the southern part of the country was less than what was anticipated. The lower turnout in the south may dent Karzai’s aspirations of running a second term, as the region primarily consists of his fellowmen, the Pashtuns.
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