KHOST, Afghanistan // Suspected Taliban militants in Afghanistan have shot dead Indian author Sushmita Banerjee, writer of a popular book about her dramatic escape from them in the 90s, police said yesterday.
Police in insurgency-hit Paktika province, in the east of Afghanistan, said they found the body of the 49 year old on Thursday morning, after the militants dragged her out of her husband's home late in the night and shot her repeatedly in a nearby location.
"We found her bullet-riddled body near a madrassa on the outskirts of Sharan city (the provincial capital) this morning," provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran said, confirming earlier reports from Indian media.
Banerjee's book "Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife", about her escape from the Taliban, was made into a Bollywood film in 2003.
Police suggested the book may have been the reason the militants went after her.
"Our investigation... indicates that the militants had grievances against her for something she had written or told in the past," the provincial police chief said.
"She had been shot 20 times and some of her hair had been ripped off by the militants," Zadran said.
The Taliban, which has been waging a bloody insurgency since the toppling of their regime in late 2001, was not reachable for comment.
Banerjee was married to Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and had recently moved back to live with him in Paktika, reportedly to run a health clinic for women there.
Sanjana Roy Choudhury, a publisher from Hay House India, said: "It was courageous of her to have written about her escape from Afghanistan.
"She married an Afghani and in trying to live a life with her husband there, this is the price she paid. It's a brave voice that's been quietened."
In an article Banerjee wrote for Outlook magazine in 1998, she said that she went to her inlaws' village in Afghanistan in 1989 but was trapped there after her husband made an urgent business trip to India and failed to return.
"Life was tolerable until the Taliban crackdown in 1993", when the militants ordered her to close a dispensary she was running, she said.
Banerjee made several attempts to escape Afghanistan and in 1994 she made it to Pakistan's capital Islamabad, but her husband's family tracked her down and took her back to Afghanistan.
"They kept me under house arrest and branded me an immoral woman. The Taliban threatened to teach me a lesson. I knew I had to escape," she wrote.
She later made another attempt to escape the family village.
"One night, I made a tunnel through the mud walls of the house and fled. Close to Kabul, I was arrested. A 15-member group of the Taliban interrogated me. Many of them said that since I had fled my husband's home, I should be executed," she wrote.
"However, I was able to convince them that since I was an Indian I had every right to go back to my country.
"The interrogation continued through the night. The next morning I was taken to the Indian embassy from where I was given a safe passage.
"Back in Kolkata I was reunited with my husband. I don't think he will ever be able to go back to his family."
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US' most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was first created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out projectiles, namely ballistic missiles, as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles both inside and outside of the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 93 miles above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then deployed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
