Police verified information on attack at office of human rights organization in Ingushetia

NAZRAN, March 10. /TASS/. Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry has not received an official report on the attack at the office of human rights activists, local law enforcers told TASS on Thursday.

The Interior Ministry said that the police verified information about the attack at the office. "Our group went to the settlement of Yandari in the new neighborhood where the private apartment rented by the "Committee on Torture Prevention" was allegedly located," the ministry said.

The rented apartment is located on the second ground of the five-story house. "The apartment is closed, and there is no one there. There were traces of break-in attempts on the metal entrance door," the ministry noted.

"There probably was an attempt to break in but they did not enter the office," a source in law enforcement agencies said.

Lawyer at the "Committee on Torture Prevention" Dmitry Utkin wrote on his Twitter microblog on Wednesday that unidentified persons attacked the headquarters of the organization in Ingushetia’s Karabulak. Utkin wrote that attackers entered the office through the window and tried to break the door from the inside - this was registered by CCTV cameras that were later turned off.

Car with journalists and human rights activists attacked

Ingushetia’s human rights ombudsman Dzhambulat Ozdoyev told TASS earlier on Thursday that he will go to Sunzha to meet with human rights activists and journalists that were attacked on Wednesday by unidentified persons on the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya.

"I will meet them, meet with representatives of law enforcement agencies and find out what is done to establish and detain those guilty," Ozdoyev said.

He described as "cynical and outrageous" Wednesday’s attack at journalists and human rights activists on the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya. The group of human rights activists from the "Committee on Torture Prevention" was on its way from Ingushetia’s Karabulak to Chechnya’s Grozny.

"If anyone had any problems with actions and conclusions of the "Committee on Torture Prevention", then they should have solved everything in a civilized manner - in court," Ozdoyev noted. He added that Ingushetia’s authorities and human rights ombudsman’s office did not have any problems with the activities of the organization.

The criminal case has been opened in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia over Wednesday’s attack at the mini-bus with human rights activists and journalists in the city of Sunzha, the republic’s Interior Ministry told TASS on Thursday. "The search operation is currently underway for establishing persons who committed this attack," the Interior Ministry said adding that the criminal case was opened on charges of "hooliganism" and "deliberate damage of property."

On Wednesday member of the Russian presidential council on development of civil society and human rights, chairman of the "Committee on Torture Prevention" Igor Kalyapin said that a group of human rights activists and journalists were attacked near the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya. "Approximately at 7:15 p.m., a group of unidentified persons moving in three vehicles attacked a group of human rights activists from the Free Mobile Group and journalists on the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya. Journalists and human rights activists were beaten up. Cellphones were seized from the two of them. The car of human rights activists was damaged and set on fire," the website of the Russian presidential council on development of civil society and human rights cited Kalyapin as saying.

It was reported that around 20 unidentified persons attacked the group of human rights activists and journalists heading for Chechnya. Six people were injured in the attack, and four of them sought medical aid. Among those injured are a citizen of Sweden and a Norwegian journalist.