A mass grave containing hundreds of bodies has been discovered in an underground prison north of the Afghan capital, the BBC reported early on Friday.
Police General Ali Shah Paktiwal told the BBC the grave was unearthed in a former military base dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The grisly find was made after an old man who recently returned to Afghanistan led police to the site.
"An old man told us about the grave. He told us he worked as a driver when there was a Russian military base here," Paktiwal told the BBC World Service.
'An old man told us about the grave'
"They used to bring people here. They put them in these rooms, they shut the door and then they put bricks and stones and covered the door with earth."
Several hundred bodies have been discovered in the 15 rooms unearthed so far but it was not known how many were buried there in total, the report said.
Paktiwal who is overseeing the criminal investigation into the mass grave said many of the victims had their arms tied and had been blindfolded or gagged.
It was the second mass grave reported to have been found near Kabul.
Last year Nato troops discovered another one near the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison in the east of the city where many opponents of the Soviet invaders were tortured and killed.
In April this year another mass grave containing the remains of more than 400 Afghans killed during the communist era was discovered in the remote north-eastern province of Badakhshan.
The Soviets occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 but communism was only defeated in 1992, when a savage civil war erupted between the factions who led the fight against the occupiers.
Most of the victims appeared to have been civilians killed for opposing the Moscow-backed communist regime, officials said.
The grave was discovered weeks after the Afghan parliament passed a reconciliation law granting amnesty to those behind the decades of atrocities, including during the communist regime.
Source: Agencies
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