Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

At the time the Taliban did not have any plans to extend their activities beyond those two districts. We were mainly thinking about our friends and neighbours, the villages and towns in which we lived. The situation had become so bad that something needed to be done, but no one seemed to be able or willing to try to stand up to the rogue commanders and bandits. We informed only the people along the road. But instead of complying with our calls for them to leave their checkpoints, the situation deteriorated.

Negotiations didn’t help, either. We needed to prove that we would act if our demands were ignored. At a meeting we all resolved to attack Daru Khan’s checkpoint. A group of ten or twelve Taliban armed with one RPG and a few Kalashnikovs approached the checkpoint from a village close by, while another group came down the road. When he noticed us Daru Khan opened fire and the fight began. He was being attacked from two sides and he realized that we were serious: we would neither tolerate his checkpoint nor would we retreat just because he forced a fight on us. A few of his men died in the exchange of fire. Daru Khan started to plead with us. “For the sake of God! Killing me will not serve you well. I am a Muslim. I fought in the jihad side-by-side with you. Just give me a chance to leave this place. I will carry out any order you give me!” he begged. With words like these he tricked us and fled.

When Yaqut, Bismillah and Pir Mohammad saw the fate of Daru Khan they, too, abandoned their posts without a fight.
…
With the fall of Kandahar, the Taliban began to re-establish their judicial system throughout the south. Several courts were opened and the judges started hearing ongoing disputes. I was deputed by Mullah Mohammad Omar to assist Mawlawi Pasanai Saheb in his court.
…
Twan, also known as Qurban, had slaughtered a man with a knife in cold blood in my childhood village of Charshakha. He was brought to Shukur Hill. Many mujahedeen had gathered there, and the father of the victim and his family were waiting for him. When Twan was brought onto the empty square the people started to beg the father of the victim for forgiveness, as was the custom in these cases.

The Ulema’ explained the virtue of forgiveness, other people offered money, and some commanders pledged weapons. One of the commanders offered fifty Kalashnikovs and some money on behalf of the condemned man, but the father of the victim could not be convinced to forgive Twan. The on-duty personnel gave him a knife and Twan was brought to him with his hands and legs tied. The father of the victim walked over to him slowly, rolling up his sleeves. He first knelt on the ground then uttered Allahu Akbar loudly and put the knife on Twan’s neck.

Taking back the knife and raising it in the air, he started to speak. “Look! God has given me this power. No one can release you from me but God. You are the one who brutally killed my son without any lawful reason. Based on the shari’a, God has given me the right to take revenge for my dear son or to forgive you for sake of God. Forgiveness pleases God more than revenge. I forgive you, so that God will be pleased with me. Now it is he who shall take revenge when the final day comes”.

He threw the knife away and at once people were crying out the takbir, others were firing guns and the people were rushing forward to kiss the hands and feet of the father. Someone untied the hands of Twan but he could not move or talk for a full five minutes. People congratulated him on this unexpected chance for a new life and told him that he should devote himself to Islam and the worship of God. “God has shown mercy. Regret your deeds and never even think of actions like these again”, he was told.

I was convinced that the man would never commit another crime, but he soon killed again. I also heard that he himself was killed in a robbery a short while later.