Translated material
Conversation "Kalashnikov"
In Dagestan, a fight between villagers escalated into a shootout and a rally
More than three hundred military and police officers were sent early yesterday morning to the small Dagestan village of Maraskent, Karabudakhkent district. On Monday evening, on the outskirts of the village, a dispute arose between two groups of local residents, during which one of the conflicting parties was killed. Neighbors and friends stood up for a fellow villager, and then set fire to the house where a relative of the alleged killer lived, and also blocked the road leading from Maraskent to the city. It was possible to calm the raging crowd only after several riot police units, representatives of the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office arrived at the scene.According to operatives of the Karabudakhkent police department, the emergency in the area was a continuation of the conflict that flared up in Maraskent a few days earlier. The village is located on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and one of the local fishermen was found murdered in the coastal area on Saturday. Residents suggested that the cause of the crime was an unshared catch, and even allegedly identified a “suspect.”
On Monday evening, on the outskirts of the village, the circumstances of the murder were clarified between three relatives of the deceased fisherman and three more - those whom the villagers considered guilty of committing the murder. All of them, according to investigators, were armed. Hot Caucasian men failed to resolve the conflict peacefully. According to eyewitnesses of the incident, 39-year-old Kamil Chamsudinov fired several machine gun bursts into the air. In response, several more shots were fired, one of which became fatal for Chamsudinov. As the investigators said, when they saw that the wounded man had died, the participants in the showdown fled.
However, within half an hour the situation in Manaskent became tense. About 250 local residents, mostly neighbors and friends of Chamsudinov, surrounded a two-story house that belonged to the older brother of one of the participants in the quarrel on the outskirts of the village, and demanded that the man come out to them “to talk.” As darkness fell, an angry crowd began throwing stones at the area and then set it on fire. The house burned down completely.
Despite the fact that the Karabudakhkent police department claims that none of their employees were present during the incident, eyewitnesses claim the opposite. According to their testimony, the police simply failed to calm the crowd, which demanded the detention of the perpetrators, as well as the arrival of the prosecutor and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan.
The spontaneous rally lasted until five in the morning, and only after the first deputy prosecutor of the republic and the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan arrived in the village, the crowd was persuaded to disperse. Along with law enforcement officials, military and special forces personnel from Makhachkala and adjacent regional police departments were transferred to Manaskent. All yesterday they maintained order in the village.
During the night, employees of the Karabudakhkent police department managed to detain three suspects in the murder of Chamsudinov. A Kalashnikov assault rifle, as well as an unregistered IZH-81 hunting rifle and a Saiga carbine were confiscated from them. Experts will have to find out whether this weapon was used in the shootout. Yesterday, the prosecutor's office of the Karabudakhkent district opened two criminal cases regarding what happened in the village - murder and illegal trafficking of weapons.