Ramzan Kadyrov demands to find authors of reports about fire in Grozny

The leader of Chechnya instructed his subordinates to search for users of social networks who disseminated false information about victims of a fire in a Grozny shopping and entertainment centre or expressed malicious joy about the incident.

The spread of gossips and false messages is a "disease" that needs to be treated, the leader of Chechnya has stated at a meeting on public health. "I just received a message that a fire occurred at a shopping centre, when audio records followed, in which women through tears reported how they allegedly saw the burnt children taken out of the 'Grand Park' shopping centre," said Ramzan Kadyrov.

The leader of Chechnya separately expressed his indignation about an author of a video, who rejoiced at the fire. "A man is standing, filming and happily singing: 'Burn, burn clearly.' What is he happy about? Someone has lost property, a store, thanks to which he made his living and earned money for his family? We need to find each of them who were so happy about the other people's tragedy," said Ramzan Kadyrov as quoted by the website of the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of the Chechen Republic on September 26.

According to the Chechen MfE, the fire at the "Grand Park" shopping and entertainment centre began at about 8 p.m., at rush hour, when there were about 1000 people in the building. The fire area amounted to 700 square meters, while the total area of the shopping centre was 42,000 square meters. Meanwhile, only the facade cladding and the premises of one of the restaurants were damaged by the fire. Rescuers evacuated all visitors, and there were no victims and injuries, the "MfE-Media" reported on September 25.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 27, 2019 at 03:00 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.