KANDAHAR // An Afghan governor has said 10 Taliban militants involved in an acid attack this month against 15 girls and their teachers have been arrested.
The Kandahar governor Rahmatullah Raufi said "several" of the militants have confessed to taking part in the attack. He declined to say exactly how many confessed.
Mr Raufi also said high-ranking Taliban fighters paid the 10 militants a total of US$2,000 (Dh7,346) to carry out the attack.
The attackers squirted the acid from water bottles onto three groups of students and teachers walking to school in Kandahar city on Nov 12.
Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban and is one of Afghanistan's most conservative regions.
Several girls suffered burns to the face and were hospitalised.
*AP
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Your rights as an employee
The government has taken an increasingly tough line against companies that fail to pay employees on time. Three years ago, the Cabinet passed a decree allowing the government to halt the granting of work permits to companies with wage backlogs.
The new measures passed by the Cabinet in 2016 were an update to the Wage Protection System, which is in place to track whether a company pays its employees on time or not.
If wages are 10 days late, the new measures kick in and the company is alerted it is in breach of labour rules. If wages remain unpaid for a total of 16 days, the authorities can cancel work permits, effectively shutting off operations. Fines of up to Dh5,000 per unpaid employee follow after 60 days.
Despite those measures, late payments remain an issue, particularly in the construction sector. Smaller contractors, such as electrical, plumbing and fit-out businesses, often blame the bigger companies that hire them for wages being late.
The authorities have urged employees to report their companies at the labour ministry or Tawafuq service centres — there are 15 in Abu Dhabi.