Dagestan MIA head calls residents of Karabudakhkent District to become anonymous informants

On April 1, an expanded sitting of the District Antiterrorist Commission was held in Gubden village, Karabudakhkent District, where Adilgerey Magomedtagirov, Minister of Internal Affairs of Dagestan, called residents of the district to present anonymous information about their fellow-villagers.

In his speech, Mr Magomedtagirov named a number of aspects, which, in his opinion, have negative impact on the situation in the village and district: children are missing school; plenty of mosques (Gubden has 33 of them) and absence of unity among the clergy.

Minister asked villagers to help militiamen through anonymous informing. "I understand that people fear, but we don't need any written information with signatures; it can be all done anonymously, by notes and letters," he said.

On that very day, in the neighbouring Gurbuki village, militiamen made a house-by-house inspection with checking passports and making a census. Gadjimurad Bekishev, head of public safety of the Karabudakhkent ROVD (District Interior Unit), explained that the aim of inspection was to find persons not registered in the village and liquidate members of illegal armed formations.

In Gubden, such inspections are held from March 18, when a counterterrorist operation was announced in the Karabudakhkent District. Head of local administration Ahmed Ahmedov said that villagers support the efforts of power agents and are ready to help them. He noted that residents mainly complained of stopping their cars for examination.

In Gubden, the aim of visits made by teachers and inspectors on minors' matters was also to find the children who escape attending secondary school. They found 34 such children. Their parents said that their children were either sick or categorically refused to go to school. Being explained that parents can be punished, they sent 24 children to resume studies, and 8 persons were fined by 500 roubles each.