The provincial police chief in Oruzgan was scathing in denouncing the crime and its perpetrators. “Sulaiman pointed a gun at her head while the other men, his sons, sliced off her nose,” said Brig. Gen. Juma Gul Himat. “Sulaiman then took her amputated nose and proudly showed it off around the village.”

It is rare for the police in Afghanistan to intervene when local villagers impose punishments for social crimes, even severe ones such as flogging and stoning, which are allowed under Shariah law, the legal code of Islam based on the Koran. There is no Shariah law provision, however, for cutting off nose and ears of a runaway child bride.

Image Time Magazine’s cover photo of Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were sliced off in 2009, under orders from a local Taliban commander. Credit... Jodi Bieber - Institute for Time, via Associated Press

“This is against Afghan-ism, against Afghan and Shariah laws, against every principle in the world, against humanity, so that’s why we wanted to bring him to justice,” said General Himat. He said that the police knew Mr. Sulaiman well as an associate of what he called terrorists, but that the police had not hunted him down for that.

“He made a big mistake,” the general said. “He disfigured a creature of God, and he was proud of what he had done.”

Aisha’s father, Hajji Muhammed Zai, reached by telephone, confirmed that he had agreed to the betrothal of Aisha and her younger sister to Mr. Sulaiman’s family members, in payment of what is called “baad,” a customary obligation owed by his own family. It is a common practice in rural areas. Both were infants when they were engaged.

He insisted, however, that he had not as yet turned over the younger daughter, who is now 12, to consummate the marriage contract.