Journalists in Ingushetia state that their car was fired upon by members of the top brass during a meeting

During a meeting in Ingushetia at the crossroads of a federal highway and a road in the direction of the town of Magas, a car with Moscow reporters of "Partner Plus" press agency, while they were taking photos of the action, was fired upon by members of the top brass, Elena Sevriukova, leader of the agency, reported.

"Caucasian Knot" has already informed that several hundred Ingush people during two hours were blocking the federal highway demanding to stop terror and kidnapping in the republic and release Jamaleil Gagiev, a kidnapped resident of the village of Ali-Yurt.

According to Sevriukova, uniformed men were trying to put obstacles to the journalists in taking photos and then opened fire from a pistol.

"I got on top of the "KamAZ" and began to take photos", leader of "Partner Plus" agency tells her story. "Some man of Slavic appearance started unceremoniously dragging me off the car. Moreover, he was trying to snatch the camera out of my hands but here the participants of the meeting came to my rescue. A camouflaged man told us to get away or else things would be worse. Another one began to take photos of us. When I realized that the situation was becoming dangerous I called President of Ingushetia Evkurov by mobile and tried to explain what was going on but he replied he was in a plane at the moment. We ran up to the car we had hired there in Ingushetia and then I saw that one of the officers was going on taking our photos and putting down the car numbers. When I tried to shoot some more frames one of the members of the top brass opened fire upon our car from a pistol".

Elena Sevriukova said that the group of journalists had found themselves at the meeting by chance. "We were driving along the federal highway Baku-Rostov, she said, and we saw a big gathering of people. The highway was blocked. The people were standing with posters "For Constitution against outrage", "Release our brothers" and some others of a similar type. One of the women taking part in the meeting told me the reason for the action had been one more act of violence from the members of the top brass: law enforcement agents seized Jamaleil Gagiev. His parents do not know where their son is, they also have no idea about the reason why masked people took him away".

The journalist told us that Bekhan Atigov, Secretary of the Security Council of Ingushetia, and Vakha Yevloev, Pesidential aide, came to meet the people. "They tried to persuade the participants to go back home assuring them that all the problems would be solved on the job. But their speeches drowned among the outcries that the authorities were only promising to stop outrage, meanwhile misfortune continued coming to somebody's home every night", Sevriukova said and added that a lot of special services personnel had arrived at the meeting and many of them were wearing masks.