Pak Taliban publicly execute couple

Taliban militants have executed a man and a woman on charges of having illicit relations, gunning down the couple in full public glare in the troubled northwest of Pakistan.

The shocking footage of the shooting incident, which took place a few days back near the border of Orakzai tribal agency, was made available to a Pakistani media outlet on Friday.

The footage, aired by Dawn News, showed the Taliban shooting the man, aged around 40, and a woman, who was about 45-year old, at an open space in the presence of their relatives and a large crowd.

The woman was heard appealing to the Taliban, 'Have mercy on me, please have mercy; the charges against me are false and no man has ever touched me.'

The militants first shot the woman by firing two bullets in her chest and later opened a burst of Kalashnikov fire at both the woman and the man. But the woman was still seen breathing, following which the Taliban yelled that she was alive and "kill her, kill her".

Sources told the channel that the Taliban had asked the relatives of the woman and the man to present the two before them for questioning at a specified place.

The relatives brought both of them to the Taliban, who killed them in cold blood.