The 49-year old Sushmita was married to an Afghan business man. She was well-known in India for her memoir, 'A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife', which recounted her life in Afghanistan with her husband Jaanbaz Khan and her escape from the Taliban. The book was a bestseller in India and was made into a Bollywood film in 2003 starring Manisha Koirala.

Sushmita also known as Sayeda Kamala, had recently moved back to Afghanistan from Kolkata to live with her husband. She was on an Indian visa.

After her near relatives in Kolkata has said they suspect foul play in the entire incident and has highlighted several discrepancies, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has asked the Indian mission in Kabul to find out the circumstances leading to the “mysterious” death of the Bengali writer.

On being asked the Official Spokesperson in the Indian External Affairs Ministry Syed Akbaruddin said “some family issues are involved in the incident.”
“We have asked our Ambassador in Kabul to be in touch with the Afghan authorities and find out the cause of the incident,” he said.

On the demand made by her relatives in Kolkata for the return of the her belongings, Akbaruddin said : “after her death her property should belong to the husband.”

Sushmita’s relatives have said that she was scheduled to travel to India on September 7. They have received no communication from her husband and others in Afghanistan till two day after her death. They got to know about her death only from media reports. It was finally on Saturday that they could reach Sushmita's husband Janbaz Khan in Kabul over telephone.

According to Sushmita's relatives Janbaz told them that she was killed by the Taliban. However, in his statement to the Indian embassy he changed his stance and said that he was not sure who had killed his wife. Also, no post mortem was conducted on her and no prior information was given to them before burying her in Kabul.

Sushmita’s relatives also approached the West Bengal government for help and met the Chief Minister on Saturday and demand her body be returned to them in India.

Sushmita, had attained international fame for her novel 'A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife' which was later made into a Hindi film. Banerjee had married an Afghan moneylender in Kolkata in the mid 1980s. Later, they had moved to Afghanistan where her husband ran a garment shop in the Paktika province.

Meanwhile the Afghan police have detained two persons over the killing of Indian author Sushmita Banerjee.

The suspects belong to the notorious Haqqani militant network.

'The men were arrested on the basis of intelligence information, and were found in possession of two Kalashnikovs, a motorbike and explosives,' provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran told and international news channel.

'Both the men are Afghan and from the village where Ms Banerjee lived. They have both confessed to involvement in the killing,' Zadran said.

Both the suspects were also accused of planting mines to target the investigation team probing the killing.