Is this justice for Farkhunda?

A woman who was killed and burned by a mob is laid to rest. Her father says the mob had been told she had set alight a copy of the Koran. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

AFGHAN women's rights activists dressed head-to-toe in black broke with tradition to carry the coffin of a woman who was beaten to death by a mob in the capital Kabul over allegations she had burned a Koran.

The mob of men beat 27-year-old Farkhunda before throwing her body off a roof, running over it with a car, setting it on fire and throwing it into a river near a well-known mosque.

The attack was apparently sparked by allegations that Farkhunda, who like many Afghans has just one name, had set fire to a Koran. But Afghanistan's most senior detective said no evidence had been found to support those claims.

An astonishing twenty-six people have been arrested in connection with the brutal killing, Afghanistan's Interior Minister Noorul Haq Ulumi in a statement before parliament no Monday, CNN reports.

Video of the assault taken with mobile phones has circulated widely since the attack on Thursday last week. The killing has shocked many Afghans and led to renewed calls for justice and reform.

Breaking with tradition ... independent Afghan civil society activist women carry the coffin of Farkhunda, 27, who was lynched by an angry mob in central Kabul. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

"We want justice for Farkhunda, we want justice for Afghan women. All these injustices happening to Afghan women are unacceptable," said a prominent women's rights activist who goes by the name Dr. Alima.

"In which religion or faith is it acceptable to burn a person to death? Today is a day of national mourning and we will not keep quiet."

President Ashraf Ghani, now in Washington on his first state visit to the United States since taking office in September, condemned the killing as a "heinous attack" and ordered an investigation.

Following allegations that police stood by and did nothing to stop the killing, Mr Ghani told reporters before leaving for the US that the incident revealed "a fundamental issue" — that security forces are too focused on the fight against the Taliban insurgency to concentrate on community policing.

Women weep ... and lie on the grave of Afghan woman Farkhunda. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Many rights activists, however, said the killing cut to the core of how women are treated as second-class citizens in Afghan society.

Despite constitutional guarantees of equal rights and advances in access to health and education, for many women in Afghanistan little has changed since the 2001 US-led invasion ended the Taliban's harsh rule. Girls are routinely married off as children, traded as chattels and then rarely permitted to leave their homes without a male relative.

Hundreds of people gathered at a graveyard today in the middle-class suburb near Farkhunda's home. With the permission of her father, the women in black carried her coffin from an ambulance to an open-air prayer ground, and then to her grave, rituals that are usually attended only by men.

"She is a sister to you all, and it is your duty to bury her," Farkhunda's brother Najibullah, standing gravesite, told the crowd.

Tragic end ... female civil society activists mourn, as men prepare the burial site of Farkhunda. Picture: AP Source: AP

Several politicians, officials and senior police officers addressed the funeral, which was broadcast live. Men formed a chain around the women pallbearers to offer protection and support.

The attack appeared to have grown out of a dispute between Farkhunda, a veiled woman who had just finished a degree in religious studies and was preparing to take a teaching post, and men who sold amulets at Shah-Do Shamshera shrine, where the killing happened.

She regarded the amulet sellers as parasites and told women not to waste their money on them, friends and family said. Her father, Mohammed Nadir, said the men responded by making false accusations that she had torched a Koran.

Civil society activists ... and relatives pray during the funeral of Farkhunda. Picture: AP Source: AP

"Based on their lies, people decided Farkhunda was not a Muslim and beat her to death," he said. The Interior Ministry said it was providing extra protection for the family.

The Interior Ministry said 13 policemen had been suspended pending investigation.

Zahir said authorities were "unable to find any single iota of evidence to support claims that she had burned a Koran."