11 April 2005, 15:38
Religious body handles conflict
A specially-established commission of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Dagestan has today left the republican capital, Makhachkala, for Derbent to investigate the reasons for a religious conflict in the city on 9 April. Dagestan's Mufti Akhmet-hajji Abdulayev heads the commission, the Spiritual Administration told Yufo.ru.
A large-scale brawl occurred in Derbent on Saturday, 9 April, between different groups of Sunni Muslims. The Dagestani police detained about 200 people. Twenty-three victims, including two police officers, applied to city hospitals for medical aid, some of them had knife wounds. A criminal case was opened under several articles of the Criminal Code, "Hooliganism" and "Commitment of bodily harm" among them. The conflict between the groups of Sunni Muslims broke out after a daily prayer and was motivated by different interpretations of rituals in Islam.
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