Updated

Afghan police say a woman has been strangled to death, apparently for bearing a baby girl instead of a boy, and her husband is the main suspect.

The police chief for Khanabad district in Kunduz province says the man fled the area last week about the time his 22-year-old wife was found dead in her house. Medical examiners said the woman was strangled.

Police Chief Sufi Habibullah says they have the man's mother in custody because she appears to have collaborated in a plot to kill her daughter-in-law.

Provincial women's affairs chief Nadira Ghya said the victim had warned family members that her husband had threatened to kill her if she gave birth to another daughter.