A woman walks the streets without covering her legs in Kabul. Picture: Haya Ensafi. Source: Supplied

The unknown woman was snapped sporting a mid-length overcoat and purple socks, her hair uncovered as she walked blithely down the street, ignoring the stares of locals.

Local journalist Hayat Ensafi toldBBC News he was so “shocked” that he “had to catch the special moment”.

“I never saw a woman here walking down the streets like this,” he said.

Ensafi said he tried to talk to the woman, but she “walked very fast and didn’t talk to me at all,” he told BBC.

Although conservative dress is now recommended for Afghan women under the Islamic dress code, it was not unusual to see women wearing shorter short skirts during the 1960s and 1970s.

Shock ... Under the Taliban, women are expected to cover up and not bare any flesh. Picture: Jordanien-Betriebsausflug Dipl. Ing. Marosevic. Source: Supplied

After Ensafi posted the images on Facebook, many users commended the woman’s choice to bare her legs, with one user writing: “It’s her body not yours. Salute her courage. We want to see more women come out like that.”

Another Afghan woman wrote: “My body, my right … no to forced hijab”.

Others, however, were shocked at the exposed flesh, saying: “We are living in a Muslim country and we can’t bear such people like she is”.

The BBC’s Kabul correspondent, Syed Anwar, said the woman has become a huge topic of conversation in Kabul.

“We have seen thousands of people talk about it,” Anwar told BBC Trending.

“Not only on social media but also in the streets people are talking about her, wondering if she is mentally ill or if she is protesting.”

Whether she was making a political statement or indeed mentally ill, her identity continues to mystify the world, and Twitter has become a-flurry trying to find the mystery woman.