Mourning events in Kaspiysk raise issue of 21-year-old terrorists' impunity

The mourning rally was held today in memory of 68 Kaspiysk casualties of explosion of a residential house on November 16, 1996. The executors and organizers of the terror act have not been found to this day.

The explosion in the apartment house No. 58 in Lenin Street in Kaspiysk occurred at night on November 16, 1996, and was the first major terror act in the history of Dagestan. The explosion damaged the entire building. Out of 106 tenants who were in the house that night, 68 were killed by the explosion, including 21 children.

Today, Kaspiysk residents laid flowers to the memorial with the casualties' names erected in the place of the destroyed house.

"It's a shame and pain that no one has been punished so far for the explosion of our house. Investigators keep silent; they failed to complete their work, as they say 'because of impossibility to identify the accused person'," told Elena Zalova, a participant of the mourning rally, who lost her husband and three sons in the explosion.

The criminal case on the fact of the explosion in Kaspiysk was opened under a terror act article. Investigators called the revenge on border guards from criminals, who had tried to set up a smuggling channel on the border with Azerbaijan, as the main version of the terror act; an alternative version was the "Chechen trace". In 2003, the Russian FSB (Federal Security Bureau) Department for Northern Caucasus reported that the inquiry had been suspended, the RIA "Novosti" reported on November 16, 2016.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.