Afghan child bride 'locked in toilet, tortured' by in-laws for refusing to work as prostitute

A 15-year-old Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her in-laws for five months after she refused to become a prostitute, it has emerged.

Sahar Gul was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week after her neighbours reported hearing Gul crying and moaning in pain.

According to police in Baghlan, her in-laws pulled out her nails and hair, and locked her in a dark basement bathroom for about five months, with barely enough food and water to survive, The Daily Mail reports.

They also burned Gul with cigarettes and cut out chunks of her flesh with pliers.

Gul told police she had been punished for refusing to become a prostitute.

'For several months I was locked up in a toilet by my in-laws and particularly my mother-in-law. I was denied food and water. I was tortured and beaten," the paper quoted her, as saying.

Gul, who suffered both mentally and physically, is being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but doctors say she may have to be sent to India.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Zia, a senior police official in Baghlan, who helped to rescue the girl, said Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been detained, but her husband and father-in-law had escaped.

"We have launched a serious hunt to get her husband and the others involved," Zia said.