Real-Life Story Of Sushmita Banerjee Who Inspired Manisha Koirala's Film 'Escape From Taliban'

The President of Afghanistan has fled the country. The government has fallen. Taliban has taken control of the nation once again after 2001.

The violence has once again been intensified. Women are being abducted from their houses. There are rumours of girls and women being forced to marry militants. Desperate to flee the country, Afghans are clinging to planes leaving the country and are falling off the planes.

Taliban had ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until being toppled by US forces in 2001. At that time, the Islamist insurgent group had imposed strict Sharia law forcing women to wear burqa and men to grow beards - allowing public executions for those convicted of murder or adultery and much more.

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At that time Indian author Sushmita Banerjee, who married an Afghan and was living in the country for years, wrote a book called A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife in which she talks about the struggles and sufferings of living amid the Taliban-Afghanistan war.

During that time, the Taliban issued a death sentence for her because she refused to abide by their rule on converting to Islam.

Later, a film was made inspired by her life story and book in 2003, which starred Manisha Koirala in the lead role.

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In 2013, Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by the Taliban after being dragged from her home. Twenty bullets were found in her body. She traveled for 36 days to flee from the country in 1995. However, she went back there against her family's wish.

The story of Sushmita Banerjee, who fled to India from Taliban-captured Afghanistan

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Sushmita Banerjee fell in love with an Aghan man, Janbaz Khan.

Sushmita Banerjee was born to a Kolkata-based Bengali Brahmin family. Her father worked at the civil defense department and her mother was a homemaker. She was the only sister to her three brothers.

Her life changed when she fell in love with Janbaz Khan, an Afghan businessman who she met at a theatre rehearsal in Calcutta.

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She got married to Janbaz Khan secretly against her parent's wish.

She secretly got married to him under the Special Marriage Act on July 2, 1988. She had not converted to Islam. She feared her parents would oppose their marriage, and that's exactly what happened. They were forcing her to divorce, and so, she fled away with him to Afghanistan.

While her husband returned to Kolkata, where he had a business, she wasn't allowed to go back by Taliban.

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She then discovered her husband had another wife.

When she moved to Afghanistan, she lived with three brothers-in-law, their wives and Gulgutti, her husband's first wife who he had married ten years ago.

The Taliban unfolded her worst nightmare.

She thought the Taliban used Islam in the wrong way. Women weren't allowed to talk to men except for their husbands. They were not allowed to step out of their house. They were not even allowed to go to the hospital because that would mean men would touch them. They were left to die at home. If any woman objected to this, she was shot dead openly.

Men had to grow beards and attend the mosque five times a day.

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When and why she decided to escape?

She saw how her sister-in-law died after giving birth to the eighth son because she couldn't get professional help. The men in the family including her husband didn't care at all. They instead were celebrating the birth of the son.

Being a trained nurse, she opened a clinic for women and would tell them about the injustice happening to them. In May 1995, her clinic was discovered by men who beat her black and blue. That's when she decided to escape.

Her first escape

She managed to get a jeep and went right up to Islamabad, Pakistan. She reached the Indian embassy, but she was cheated on and handed back to the Taliban.

Her second escape

She ran all night but was arrested again. This time, a fatwa was issued against her. She was scheduled to die on July 22, 1995.

Her third and successful escape

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Dranai chacha, the village headman, whose son was killed by Taliban had turned against the group and so he helped her escape.

She grabbed an AK-47, which was commonly found in every household and killed three Talibani men.

Dranai drove her to Kabul, where got a visa and a passport and landed on Indian soil via a flight on Aug 12, 1995. She finally reunited with her husband.

How she led her life in India post escape

She lived in India until 2013, published many books including A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife, Talibani Atyachar¡ªDeshe o Bideshe, Mullah Omar, Taliban O Ami, Ek Borno Mithya Noi and many more.

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Despite everything she went through, she decided to return to Afghanistan. Here's why!

While some people say she wanted to reunite with her adopted daughter, others say she went back to the country because she wanted to write another book on how Afghanistan was faring under democracy. She believed women were still oppressed.

During her return, she worked as a health worker in Paktika Province in southeastern Afghanistan and began filming the lives of local women.

She was shot dead by Taliban.

According to Afghan police, Taliban militants forced them into her home, bound her husband and absconded with her. Later, her body was found on the outskirts of provincial capital Sharana with 20 bullets. While the Taliban denied involvement, a spokesman for a renegade Taliban militia group later accepted she was killed by it because she was "an Indian spy".

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