Hundreds of thousands of Russians gathered in towns and cities across the country on Tuesday in a show of solidarity after the school hostage-taking in Beslan in which at least 335 adults and children died.
From Moscow south to the Chechen capital, Grozny, and east to Vladivostok, placards held by participants bore mottos such as ”Russia against terror”, ”We grieve together” and ”Only cowardly scum wage war against children”.
In the capital, several tens of thousands of people gathered by St Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square on the second official day of mourning for victims of the stand-off that ended with a massacre in Beslan, North Ossetia.
According to official figures, 335 people died and 705 were injured in the attack, including 307 children.
More than 400 people were still being treated in hospital for gunshot and blast injuries and burns, while more than 100 bodies were still unidentified because of the severity of their disfigurement.
President Vladimir Putin earlier rejected a public inquiry into the events, The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Putin, in an interview with The Guardian and other foreign correspondents on Monday evening in Moscow, said he will instead order an internal inquiry into the tragedy to find out ”who is responsible and might be punished”.
The Russian president said if the country’s Parliament wants to conduct an independent investigation into Russia’s worst-ever terrorist attack, he will not oppose it.
However, he warned that such a proceeding could turn into a ”political show” and offered his opinion that such an inquiry ”would not be very productive”.
Putin rejected any talks with the Chechen rebel leadership believed responsible for the hostage drama. He said just as Osama bin Laden would not be invited to the White House for official talks, he would not open dialogue with those behind the hostage tragedy.
Fuelling speculation about official attempts to censure information about the crisis, the chief editor of Izvestia newspaper, Raf Shakirov, was dismissed in mysterious circumstances on Tuesday. The paper gave some of the most open and critical coverage of the hostage-taking after it began September 1.
According to Russian state television, a captured gunman said it was ordered by Chechen resistance leader and former president Aslan Maskhadov and Russia’s top terrorist, Shamil Basayev.
The aim was to suck other North Caucasus republics into the conflict in Chechnya, said the man, who was identified as coming from that republic. — Sapa-DPA