Taleban militants murdered a young couple trying to elope in southwestern Afghanistan after accusing them of immoral acts, local Afghan officials reported today.

The incident occurred in Nimroz Province, a bleak desert region on the Iranian border. The governor of the province, Ghulam Dastagir Azad, said that the couple, an unnamed girl of 19 and a man of 21, were condemned by a council of clerics and shot by firing squad. He called the killing an "insult to Islam".

"An unmarried young boy and an unmarried girl who loved each other and wanted to get married had eloped because their families would not approve the marriage," he said.

Nimroz lies largely outside government control, and officials offered limited and sometimes varying details of the couple’s last hours.

Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of Nimroz’s provincial council, said that the pair attempted to flee to Iran, where several million Afghan refugees take up low-paid jobs.

However, their families were reported to have dispatched gunmen to pursue them, said Mr Chakhansori, and they were caught. Reports differ over whether the families turned them over to local Taleban voluntarily or the Taleban took them by force.

"Three Taleban mullahs brought them to the local mosque and they passed a fatwa that they must be killed. They were shot and killed in front of the mosque in public," the governor said.

The couple were shot in the remote district of Khash Rod yesterday, said the provincial council chief. The Nimroz police chief, Jabar Pardeli, said that the Government had no access to the area.

Elopements are regarded as deeply damaging to family honour across Afghan society and murders of women by male relatives are frequently reported. In this instance it is not clear whether the families were complicit in the murders.

Even in government-held areas killings in which there is a clear honour motive are rarely investigated.

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