Militiamen detain believers in Ingushetian mosque

On May 5, in one of the mosques of the Pliev Municipal District in Ingushetia, a number of mosque parishioners were detained. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by local residents.

"When we were making our afternoon prayer, 6-7 armed persons in masks rushed into the mosque and shouted, without presenting themselves and explaining nothing, 'Whose cars are there in the street?' They literally interrupted our prayer and detained three car owners without any explanations - myself, Yusuf Pliev, a resident of the Pliev Municipal District, and Murad Albakov, a resident of the city of Malgobek," said Khamzat Gardanov, a resident of the Pliev Municipal District.

After interrogation, the three detainees were released yesterday at 6:00 p.m.; two of them were given their cars back at once, and Khamzat Gardanov - today in the morning.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that the parishioners of this mosque, and the mosque itself, have been exposed to pressure by local law enforcement bodies since 1999, when the authorities first tried to close it. They succeeded only in 2003, when without any decision of the court, the mosque was battened, and the employees of the Karabulak GOVD (City Militia Unit) and personally its former head Dzhabrail Kostoev prohibited the parishioners to enter the mosque.

The law enforcers accuse the parishioners of dissemination of the religious trend "Wahhabism". The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has managed to find out that the mosque was reopened in 2005.