November 18, 2001

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In the village of Avtury, the military captured several local residents. At about 9 p.m., 50-year-old Kharon Gandaev was kidnapped while returning from a neighbor living two houses down on his street. About three hours later, Zaur Sultanovich Abazov, born 1985, Zaurbek Vakhaevich Israpilov, born 1987 (1988), Ismail Sulimanovich Dakaev, born 1985, were kidnapped. The fifth person, Altemirov, about whom practically nothing is known except his last name, was taken away from the village later than everyone else.

The Memorial Human Rights Center has learned the details of the capture of three teenagers. It all happened in the courtyard of Sultan Abazov and Kheda Martanukaeva (Lenin St., 221). At about 11 p.m., the military took away Zaurbek Israpilov and Ismail Dakaev, who had left the house after watching the video and were about to go home. Zaur Abazov, the son of the owners of the house, was beaten and, together with the guests whom he came out to see off, put in an armored personnel carrier. Then the abducted people were taken somewhere. It turned out that the commandant's office of the Shalinsky district. There they were forced to confess that they had hidden the radio somewhere. The interrogation was accompanied by beatings.

The next day, November 19, more than a hundred Avturin residents came to Shali and, standing in front of the commandant’s office, demanded the release of their illegally detained fellow villagers. In the evening, all five - three teenagers, Kharon Gandaev and Altemirov - were released. They were severely beaten and subsequently underwent treatment in medical institutions.

According to eyewitnesses, the military men who abducted the residents of Avtury were dressed in camouflage uniforms without any identification marks. They were wearing masks and did not present documents. The side number of the armored personnel carrier was either erased or missing altogether. The ethnicity of the kidnappers is Russian.

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A battle took place in the village of Belorechye. Six members of the VF of the ChRI entered into a shootout with policemen from the POM and the VOVD of the Gudermes district. The battle was fierce, both sides suffered losses. Only two of the militants survived; they managed to escape. Two employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan, who staffed the VOVD, were killed, and eight more were wounded. Curie Tepsuev from the permanent department was mortally wounded, and three of his colleagues were slightly wounded.

The house in which members of the VF ChRI defended themselves was then burned down.

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At dawn, a double murder was committed in Grozny. The military broke into the apartment of Raisa Dadaeva, born in 1964, in a house on Olimpiysky Proezd and killed her and her nephew (brother’s son), 9-year-old Khusein Dadaev. Human Rights Center “Memorial” knows that Kheda Mutalieva, the mother of the murdered boy, then lived at the address: Argun, Nuradilov St., 15.

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At 11.30 Argun came under massive mortar fire. There is destruction in the city. In particular, the house of the mother of five minor children, Zarema Akhmadova (Gudermesskaya St., 16), was seriously damaged.

From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.