On 7 January, Russian human rights defenders condemned the deaths of a family who were detained by the Chechen authorities in October 2020 (Caucasus Watch reported), saying that extrajudicial killings of militants' relatives are pushing the people on the path of radicalisation, reported the Caucasian Knot.
“Unfortunately, the authorities of the Chechen Republic believe there is no need to comply with the laws, no need to bring suspects to courts, and no need to prove their guilt. Instead, as it used to be said a hundred years ago, being guided by ‘class instinct,’ they may torture someone and kill someone. This is now a reality in Chechnya," stated Igor Kalyapin, the head of Russia’s Committee against Torture (CaT). “Moreover, this is being done in contradiction to the Russian laws, in contradiction to the Russian Constitution. All the above is being done with the connivance of our federal authorities, in particular, the heads of the law enforcement bodies,” he added.
On 5 January, the Russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” reported that the dead bodies of the owner of the house where the counter-terrorist operation (CTO) took place Islam Sakhanov, his pregnant wife and brother were handed over to their relatives about a month after their detention.
The newspaper learned about the fate of those detained after the CTO in Grozny from a source in the Chechen Branch of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). According to the official version, Islam Isakhanov, his first wife and brother perished in a road accident on a new highway running through the Tersk Ridge. According to the FSB Branch, the car was found shelled. However, as noted by Elena Milashina, the author of the article, the official reports of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) fail to mention either the incident with the car shelling or the road accident with the death of three persons.
A suspicious murder case was also reported in Dagestan where a resident of the dwelling settlement of Tarki died in hospital after being stabbed during a people's gathering to discuss the murder of an activist on Tarki-Tau Mount. The 23-year old activist Vali Abduragimov tried on 3 January to unite the settlement's jamaat against drug dealers and claimed a former law enforcer's involvement in illegal circulation of forbidden substances, was killed on the slope of Tarki-Tau Mountain in Makhachkala. After the murder, residents talked about a mass brawl in Tarki, a dwelling settlement that is a part of Makhachkala. A scuffle with policemen occurred at the residents' gathering. Then, people began dispersing, but suddenly a brawl broke out again, in which about 10 Tarki residents took part. As a result, two men were stabbed; one of them died in hospital, it was also reported that the Dagestani law enforcers detained seven people during this incident.
