There are many keepsake stories from the years the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Most of them gruesome, some of them fascinatingly bizarre and some other as graphic that reading the story will spark vomiting.

Among those folks who have witnessed incidents of the above categories during the Taliban regime, one is me; and among those stories, one very fascinatingly bizarre story is the tale of Taliban mullahs and religious teachers who every weekend used to check their student’s private areas to see whether they shaved their penis hair or not.

In the year 1998, when Taliban exiled my father and 4 other doctors from our hometown in southwestern Nimruz province to southern Kandahar province, me and my younger brother were deprived of the only education we had back in Nimruz.

My father was very persistent about our education, so he decided to register us in a Taliban school to continue our basic education; however there were future-useful subjects like English language or Chemistry or Biology or Physics. In this school we studied 7 subjects. Except for two, rest of them were religious teachings.

The school was named Khatam-ul-Nabeyeen and was administered by a person named Mullah Abdul Rahim. Mullah Rahim was a heavy, dark-skinned, and bitter-spoken person who always wore a Kurta Pajama of the same color and a white cap that had settled a layer of thick, black dirt from his sweat. Rahim wore a pair of old, sliced, plastic sandals that on some occasions he used its right pair to punish students who did not bring homework or displayed an ill-favored gesture.

Apart from Mullah Abdul Rahim – the principal – there were 5 other Mullahs who wore turbans and had Kalashnikovs and whips with them to any class they went for teaching.

There were several traditions and rituals in our Madrasa (School in Pashto) which we were compelled to observe during the week and on every ritual’s specific day.

One ritual was a profane and disrespectful custom that one Mullah teacher named Mullah Wali Jaan Akhundzada would supervise the practice of it. It was a custom related to “personal hygiene”.

Like every other Islamic state, Friday was the holiday of the week and Thursday was the weekend, and Saturday was the first day of the week – as it is now.

Age of students studying in the Madrasa ranged from 10 up to 25 and even 30.

Every Saturday, Mullah Wali Jaan would teach us Quran. After the class lesson was over, he would ask two students to hold a blanket from two sides and shape a curtain in order to create a private area for him to conduct the ritual.

He would then ask the students one by one to enter that blanket-walled private area and pull down their Pajamas for him – in such a way that the student’s private area would be clearly visible to him.

The mullah used to carry a stick with him, by which he sometimes beat the lazy and undisciplined students.

After the student pulled down his Pajama, Mullah Wali Jaan would point his stick towards the student’s penis and testicles and move it to left and right sides and make sure he has shaved his penis’s hair as part of Madrasa’s policy of taking care of personal hygiene of their students – according to them.

Those students who had developed puberty hair in their private areas, were compelled to shave the hair every week. If they had not done this, they would be punished by getting beaten by a cane or 5 lashes.

After checking the student’s penis, Mullah Wali Jaan would check the student’s underarms and make sure those areas are shave also.

Those who paid attention to their hygiene and shaved their private areas’ hair would be complimented and encourage for keeping their hygiene clean like this – and those who would have disobeyed the Mullah’s order would be lashed 5 times on his back with his clothes taken off.

In my case, I would shave every weekend and my brother had not developed puberty hair – which spared him the check.

Two months before the Taliban’s governor of my hometown issued an amnesty bill which allowed the exiled doctors to return to Nimruz, in one week I forgot to shave my private area (i.e. underarm and penis).

I went to Madrasa on Saturday and when the check time began, I suddenly realized that I have not shaved.

I tried to bring an excuse and leave the classroom to save myself from the 5 lashes for not shaving, but Mullah Wali Jaan was too clever to let me escape the his profane check.

After he touched my penis with his stick, he gently hit it with his wooden stick and ordered me to take off my shirt and turn my back to him. Helpless me took off my shirt and let him hit me 5 times.

My younger brother was shocked because it was the first time that were being punished for a misdeed. While being lashed, I noticed my brother’s tears and a fear in his face.

When this week was over, my father was made aware of the amnesty order.

We packed our life and left for our hometown.

That became the last time that I faced a Taliban teacher 5 times elder than me touching and looking at my private areas.

Five months later, a relative from Kandahar sent a note by a truck driver which said Mullah Wali Jaan was sent to a combat operation by his supreme commander and was killed in an RPG fire to his face.