July 19, 2001
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Between 6 and 7 o'clock the village of Shalazhi was cordoned off by armored vehicles and servicemen of the federal forces. A little later, they began to enter houses and take men and teenagers out of there. Local residents, having heard about the cruelty that was shown in the settlements of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya, were in a state close to panic. To some extent, their worst expectations were confirmed: all the detainees (aged 14 and older) were taken to a livestock farm on the outskirts of the village and put in pits that had once been used for laying silage. Then one by one they were taken upstairs, checked against a computer database and fingerprinted. After that, papers were given out, on which it was written that the person “passed through the filtration”, and released.
Memorial Human Rights Center had no information about the release of two people: Adam Israilov and Khizir Isaevich Chadayev, born in 1978. Moreover, the latter, who lived in the village at 10 Kirov Street, was listed as missing for a long time. A few years later, our employee managed to meet with his uncle, Ahyad, who said that his nephew, having been severely beaten before, was released on the second day of detention.
When Khizir Chadayev was taken away, the military did not introduce themselves and did not explain their actions in any way. However, the victim and his relatives did not complain anywhere. They thought it would be worse for them.
During the “cleansing operation”, which continued for the next two days, the Russian military looted and damaged the property of the villagers, insulted and humiliated them. Another 27 people were captured, and on July 21, a local resident Khusein Bamsuev was killed while trying to escape.
On the same days, a similar operation was carried out in the neighboring village of Gekhi-Chu, Shalazhi, which administratively belongs to the same Urus-Martan district. The employees of the HRC "Memorial" do not know anything about how the military behaved there.
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At about 11 o'clock in the city of Grozny, a local resident Zaur (Zaurbek) Abdullaevich Dadashev, born in 1985, living at the address: Oktyabrsky district, Mirzoev st., 37, was seriously wounded. He submitted documents for admission to the oil institute and walked along with a native of Ingushetia, Idris Magomedovich Bagatyrev, along A. Avtorkhanov Avenue (former Lenin Street). In the area of the bridge across the Sunzha River, a column consisting of one Ural car and an escort armored personnel carrier with submachine gunners on armor drove out to meet them. When 30–40 m were left before them, an explosion thundered; the soldiers jumped to the ground.
Young people got scared and ran towards the overgrown wasteland. After them, without any warning and immediately, automatic fire was opened. The military, according to eyewitnesses, shouted: "There they are, bastards, kill them!" Zaur Dadashev received a penetrating bullet wound in the abdomen and fell down. Idris Bogatyrev managed to escape. Having moved to a safe distance, he tried to call for help from local residents, visitors and merchants located nearby the central city market. But it was impossible. Despite the fact that the wounded man kept asking loudly: "Don't shoot, I'm here," the military shelled the area where he was lying for half an hour. Then slowly, observing all precautions, demanding to raise their hands and kneel, they began to approach him. The young man tried to explain that he couldn't do it. As confirmation, he pointed to a bleeding wound in his stomach. The military, however, beat him; one of them hit him in the back of the head with his machine gun, the other hit him in the jaw with his fist. All this was accompanied by foul language.
Without letting the relatives who arrived in time to the scene, threatening to open fire on anyone who tried to interfere with them, the military lifted Zaur Dadashev into the back of the Ural and took him to the territory of the Leninsky District VOVD. There he was examined by a doctor. In his opinion, the wounded man had no more than three hours to live. Apparently, therefore, the military considered it possible to transfer it to the employees of the permanent police department of the Zavodskoy district. Forty minutes after that, he was taken to the city hospital No. 9 and operated on.
Zaur Dadashev's mother wrote a complaint to the prosecutor's office in Grozny about the attack on her son. Whether a criminal case was initiated, Memorial HRC is unknown.
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Between 20:00 and 21:00 the checkpoint near the village of Shaami-Yurt was attacked by members of the CRI WF. During the ensuing battle, six (according to other sources, seven) fighters of the Russian OMON, as well as two militants, were killed.
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In mid-July (the exact date could not be established) in the evening, two armed men in camouflage uniforms and masks broke into a house located not far from the mosque near the Dalnyaya bus stop in the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny. At least one of them spoke Chechen well.
The owner of the house, 40-year-old Visit Burzigov, who was sitting in front of the TV, was shot dead by them from a pistol with a silencer in the head. At gunpoint, they took the car keys from his 17-year-old daughter and ran out into the yard. When the mistress of the house ran up to the shots, screams and noise of a running car, the criminals shot her from a machine gun. Later, 24 bullet wounds were counted on the woman's body. The criminals left in an unknown direction.
From the book "People Live Here", Usam Baisaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006
