A local government official claimed on Saturday that Taliban officials in the western Afghan city of Herat executed four accused kidnappers and hanged their bodies in public to discourage others.

The guys had abducted a local businessman and his son, according to Sher Ahmad Ammar, deputy governor of Herat, and planned to transport them out of the city when they were noticed by patrols who had set up checkpoints around the city.

Following a gunfight, all four Taliban soldiers were dead, with one Taliban soldier injured.

“Their bodies were brought to the main square and hung up in the city as a lesson for other kidnappers,” he said.

The two kidnapping victims were released unharmed, he said.

Herat resident Mohammad Nazir said he had been shopping for food near the city’s Mostofiat Square when he heard a loudspeaker announcement calling for people’s attention.

“When I stepped forward, I saw they had brought a body in a pickup truck, then they hung it up on a crane,” he said.

Footage of the bloodstained corpse, swinging on the crane was widely shared on social media, showing a note pinned to the man’s chest saying “This is the punishment for kidnapping”.

No other bodies were visible but social media posts said others were hung up in other parts of the city.

In an interview with the Associated Press published this week, senior Taliban figure Mullah Nooruddin Turabi said the group would restore punishments like amputations and executions to deter criminals.

Despite international condemnation, the Taliban have said they will continue to impose swift and severe punishments on lawbreakers to stop crimes like robbery, murder and kidnapping that had become widespread in Afghanistan.

Washington, which condemned Turabi’s reported comments on punishments, has said any potential recognition of the Taliban-led government in Kabul, which replaced the Western-backed government that collapsed last month, would depend on respect for human rights.

According to the official Bakhtar news agency, eight kidnappers were also arrested in a separate incident in the southwestern province of Uruzgan.