NIZHNY NOVGOROD, September 24. /TASS/. Law enforcement officers exposed inmates in the Nizhny Novgorod Region that joined an extremist organization and plotted to escape from their prison, the Russian Investigative Committee said.

"According to the investigation, certain inmates of the Federal Governmental Institution Penal Colony No. 6 of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service in the Nizhny Novgorod Region made attempts to join a religious extremist group, which the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in 2010 ruled to designate as extremist and ban, and played an active part in it, promoting radical religious tenets of the said association among other inmates," the committee said in a statement.

Also, while in the colony, they developed an escape plan and prepared prohibited items for its implementation.

The committee said that when the three people were preparing for an escape, they were stopped by the employees of the Investigative Committee, the Federal Security Service, the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Interior Ministry in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

During a search, investigators seized extremist religious literature, manuscripts and knives. The suspects were isolated from other prisoners and escorted to a pretrial detention center.