Muslim cleric attacked in Russia’s Karachay-Cherkessia

KARACHAY-CHERKESSIA, 18 December, Caucasus Times: A well-known religious figure has been attacked in Karachay-Cherkessia. This time round the victim was the head of the Karachay-Cherkess Imam Abu-Khanif Institute and deputy chairman of the spiritual board of Muslims of Karachay-Cherkessia and Stavropol Territory, Ismail-khadzhi Bostanov.

Three unidentified masked people broke into Bostanov’s house in Cherkessk in the early hours on Saturday [16 December], the republic’s law-enforcement agencies told the Caucasus Times. The assailants wounded and beat the cleric.

“Ismail-khadzhi received a penetrating bullet wound and stab wounds. Bostanov’s two underage children and wife were in the house at the time of the attack. His wife was also beaten up. The Cherkessk prosecutor’s office has instituted criminal proceedings into the attack under Article 162 of the Russian Criminal Code,” a source in the Karachay-Cherkess law-enforcement agencies said.
It was the fifth attack on religious leaders of Karachay-Cherkessia this year. An unidentified person wearing a mask fatally wounded imam Abdul-Kerim Bayramukov during the evening prayers in the Karachayevsk mosque in August. A week later another religious figure, 86-year-old Ismail Batchayev who had retired by the time, was brutally killed in his own
house.

The house of the chairman of the coordination centre of Muslims of the North Caucausus and head of the spiritual board of Muslims of Karachay-Cherkessia and Stavropol Territory, Ismail-khadzhi Berdiyev, came under fire from assault rifles last March. Unidentified people threw a grenade into the yard of Berdiyev’s house in early December. No-one was hurt in either of
the attacks.