Sushmita Banerjee was born in 1963 in Calcutta, India and passed on September 2013. She is also known as Sushmita Bandhopadhyay and Sayeda Kamala. She was raised in a middle class Bengali Brahmin family with three other brothers. Her father worked at the civil defense department and her mother was a homemaker. Sushmita married Janbaz Khan, Afghan businessman, in 1988. The marriage was hidden from her parents as she was afraid they would not approve. Eventually the parents found out and tried to get them divorced but she fled to Afghanistan to be with him. Sushmita came to be a writer and activist in India. In addition, she was a trained nurse in gynecology that open a clinic to helped women in the village. While residing in Afghanistan with her husband’s family, she one day realized that her husband had a previous wife when she found them in bed together. She still stayed with the family in-laws. While she continues to stay in Afghanistan working in her clinic, Sushmita experienced abuse as they severely beat her in her own clinic in 1995. As the situation worsen, she attempted to flea the country twice but was caught bought times. She was in house arrest and then was issued a fatwa, ruling by Islamic law, to die on July 22, 1995. With the assistance of the village head, she was able to escaped to Kabul and fly back to Calcutta in the Summer of 1995. Once she fled, she stay in India until 2013 and eventually returned to Afghanistan to work as a health worker. In addition, she started to film the lives of the local women. Susmita started her writing in 1995 with the titled, “Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou”. It was a memoir that reflected her experience of marrying an Afghan and her time in Afghanistan during Taliban rule. It talked about the adversities she faced and how she escaped the country that wanted to execute her. The memoir was converted into a film in 2003 titled, “Escape from Taliban”. Her memoir was very popular and she also authored: Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Abroad, Mullah Omar Taliban and I, Not a Word is a Lie, and The Swansong of Civilization. All her work spoke out against the Taliban and her experiences with them. Sushmita was an inspirational woman as she stayed with her husband in Afghanistan who persevere so much against the Taliban. The group beat her and attempted to execute her by law and still she survived to tell her story. She is such a strong woman and her books gave a first person perspective on what really is happening when Taliban was in control. She also amazed me when she returned to Afghanistan to do social work. It sadden me that she was attacked by Taliban terrorists in her home as they sought to stop her from slandering the Taliban.

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