A former female member of the Afghan police, identified in reports only as Muskan, has told reporters that gangs of Taliban fighters are going door-to-door and having sex with dead bodies as they round up women and girls as young as 12 as “spoils of war” sex slaves.

The terrified former female member of the Afghan police, identified only as Muskan, told outlet News18 militants “don’t care whether the person is dead or alive” as they hunt down women and girls as “spoils of war”.

Muskan fled to India following the Taliban’s lightning-fast taking of Kabul, and told a broadcaster there the horrific situation for the women left behind.

She claims the Islamists gave “numerous warnings” that women and their families are under threat of death or physical violence if they go to work.

She added: “The fighters would not warn you twice.

“They rape dead bodies too. They don’t care whether the person is dead or alive. Can you imagine this?”

The militants have been going door-to-door, wrenching women and girls from their families, or shooting them, she added.

The grisly news comes as reports suggest the warlords have been hunting children as young as 12 to take as sex slaves following the takeover.

Despite promises from Taliban leadership that women’s rights will be respected under their new rule, reports suggest they are returning to their old ways and forcing marriages and carrying out sexual assaults across the country.

Unmarried or widowed women are considered “ghanimat” or the “spoils of war”, The Sun reports.

Women and girls in particular are said to be at serious risk under the new Taliban regime, following the example set during the five years of the regime’s brutal oppression of females between 1996-2001.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist, largely bearing down on women and girls, who were cruelly tortured and even publicly executed for the most minor breaches of their backward version of Sharia law.

Leaders of the regime took control of the presidential palace in a rapid military operation that has baffled Western powers, who thought it would take the fighters around 90 days – not 90 hours.

In a televised press conference after their victory, Taliban chiefs promised the regime would not return to the barbarism of the 90s, and that women’s rights would be protected, but only under Sharia.

Leaders have also said they are struggling to keep their ranks in check and that doing so is one of their primary concerns during the transition period.

Not wishing to stick around to find out, petrified refugees have flooded the capital and its airport, where they hope to escape the country on one of the planes promised to them by foreign powers.

But those refugees are being targeted for their women too, reports claim, adding that commanders are demanding they hand over unmarried women to be raped or forcibly wed to the sick fighters.

When approached with the accusations of widespread rape, murder, torture, and the imposition of sexual slavery, the Taliban have denied each. They say the horrific behaviour being carried out by their soldiers are contrary to Islam, and therefore acutely condemned by the Islamist military regime.

Despite their denial, these practices were widespread and often carried out systematically under the regime’s previous rule.

Around month before taking control of the capital, the Taliban leadership reportedly published a decree demanding young girls and widows under 45 be reported to them by local leaders.