In many parts of Afghanistan, particularly in remote areas, women are customarily not allowed to be examined by male doctors except in the presence of close male family members as their chaperons. Stoning is the punishment for adultery under Shariah law, and many Afghan clerics approve of it, although it is officially outlawed here.

“It’s always hard for working women to stay in touch with male colleagues because most Afghans see them as sexual relations rather than work relations, and it’s all because of old traditions and a low level of education,” Chief Taj said.

He said there was no indication that the victims’ relationship was anything other than professional in nature.

Nonetheless, a crowd quickly gathered on the street below the doctor’s second-floor office after word spread that he was treating a patient alone. The police arrived to escort them out of the office, according to Nabila Rahimi, head of the legal department of the ministry of women’s affairs in the province, and were able to protect the woman from serious attack, but not the doctor. Ms. Rahimi said attackers threw Dr. Hashimi off a balcony into the crowd below, and people began stoning him.

A local television station broadcast the attack, according to residents.

Chief Taj said the doctor was eventually rescued and taken to the Balkh General Hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif. However, officials at that hospital said they had been told by the police that the doctor had been killed and the midwife was missing. One said that the police had ordered hospital officials to lie and to say that both victims were at their hospital under treatment. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution for violating those orders.