ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran late Saturday abolished its morality police force in a landmark decision, according to the country's prosecutor general, after almost three months of deadly nationwide protests triggered by the death of Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in police custody.

"The morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and has been closed from the same place it was established in the past,” Iran’s attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. 

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have largely struggled to contain the protests which have spread to every corner of the country with people taking to the streets against the regime. The Kurdish areas of western Iran (Rojhelat) as well as southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan, another predominantly Sunni region, have become a real dilemma for the IRGC and its militias.

The announcement came a day after Montazeri said that "both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)” of whether Iran’s mandatory hijab law needs to be changed.   

Despite Montazeri's remarks, there has been no official confirmation that the morality police has been abolished. 

According to the latest tally by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Sunday, 470 people including 64 children have been killed in the protests, in addition to 61 members of the security forces. 

"The ‘morality’ police routinely subject women and girls to arbitrary detention, torture, and other ill-treatment for not complying with Iran’s abusive, degrading and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws,” Amnesty International said in September while condemning the brutal approach that Iranian forces have taken against the protestors.

-Rudaw