September 22, 2001

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On September 22 and 23, military personnel, presumably army intelligence officers, committed riots in the village of Eshilkhatoy. The reason for the retaliatory action, according to them, was the recent attack by militants on a Russian armored column. The military detained the Kuzhulov brothers: Sobara, born in 1971, and Apti, born in 1966. In front of their parents, they were beaten and taken away in an unknown direction. The brothers, who returned home only two weeks later, said that in captivity they were almost continuously beaten and tortured.

Many village families suffered that day. So, having burst into the house, the military beat and “interrogated” the three Idrisov brothers in front of the rest of the family members. The military pinched their fingers with wooden sticks, demanding to know who carried out the attack on the armored column. The Elmurzaevs were also beaten, and their house was fired upon with machine guns and grenade launchers. Several people from this family received shrapnel wounds. One of them was captured and tried to be taken away, but he managed to escape along the road.

The military behaved in Eshilkhatoy like conquerors - untied and rude, they pestered the girls. When leaving, they mined all the empty households.

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During the day, on the outskirts of the village of Starye Atagi, unknown people stole two Urals belonging to the Russian military. The vehicles fell behind the convoy driving along the Grozny-Shatoi highway. Their drivers were killed.

At about 11 p.m., during the curfew, two local residents were fatally injured as a result of a mine explosion in the vicinity of a populated area.

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