Residents of Achkhoy-Martan District of Chechnya complain of power agents

In these latter days, employees of Russian federal and local power agencies have actually terrorized the population of some dwelling settlements of Achkhoy-Martan District of Chechnya. This is the assertion of Aslambek Apaev, expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group for Northern Caucasus.

According to his story, during these several days he was approached with complaints against arbitrariness of law enforcers and power agents by residents of Valerik and Yandi (Orekhovo) villages.

"People are just driven to full despair," said the human rights activist. "They fear to file written applications, as, as they say, power agents threaten to execute them. The situation in the Achkhoy-Martan District, and in particular, in Valerik and Orekhovo is extremely hard."

According to the data received by Apaev, on March 30 in Valerik, power agents seized and took nobody knows where local resident Min Elmurzaev, born in 1976, who lived in Sheripova Street. His only "guilt", according to Mr Apaev, was that he took people in his car to the forest to gather ramson. The day before yesterday, at night on March 29, in Valerik village, power agents detained another young man named Muslim. During detention, they severely beat his father and brothers who tried to find out where and why thee young man was taken.

"In Orekhovo, similar things happen. Local residents say that subdivisions of military and local power agencies got concentrated there. They have entrenched around the village, practically every night they rush into houses and open chaotic shooting. There are cases when they kidnap young men, torture them and then set free for money," said Apaev.

According to his information, disturbing news items are coming also from the Vedeno District, in particular, from Dargo village. "There, power agents from subdivisions deployed in the neighbouring Nozhay-Yurt District are regularly conducting the so-called "targeted clean-ups" and take young men away to their base and illegally detain them there from 3 to 15 days. In this context, I plan to address my boss and members of other human rights organizations for launching monitoring of the situation in these districts," Mr Apaev said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

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