The speaker of the Ingushetian parliament linked the explosion at the mosque with an attack on journalists

The explosion in the Nasyr-Kortovskaya mosque in Nazran on March 11 and the attack on journalists and human rights activists on March 9 are interconnected, says Speaker of the Parliament of Ingushetia Mukharbek Dikazhev. TASS reports this.

“The latest events in the Sunzhensky district of the republic - an attack on journalists and human rights activists and an explosion near a mosque - are interconnected. We believe that this is one of the links in the crime that was committed the day before against journalists and human rights activists,” Dikazhev said.

He added that the explosion at the Nasyr-Kortov mosque “is regarded as a provocation.”

Earlier on Friday, a car exploded near the Nasyr-Kortov mosque in Nazran. Police told Mediazona that three victims were hospitalized. According to an Interfax source in local law enforcement agencies, a gas cylinder exploded in the car. A TASS source claims that the cause of the explosion was a powerful improvised explosive device. TASS's interlocutor regards the explosion in the mosque as an attempt on the life of Imam Khamzat Chumakov, who was slightly injured.

On the evening of March 9, about 20 unknown masked men attacked the car of the Combined Mobile Group of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which was traveling from Ingushetia to Chechnya. The attackers beat human rights activists, the driver, Russian and foreign journalists and burned the car. Shortly after this, masked men armed with machine guns tried to break into the office of human rights activists in Ingushetia. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia opened a criminal case under articles of hooliganism and destruction of other people's property.