GROZNY, July 20 (RIA Novosti) - The police have identified people who they suspect of involvement in yesterday's terrorist act in Chechnya, a senior interior ministry official said.
"The [former] owner of the military vehicle which exploded in the center of Znamenskoye has been identified. We have a number of leads and have drawn up a list of people who could have bought the vehicle from its previous owner," Deputy Chechen Interior Minister Akhmed Dakayev said.
"There are witnesses who saw the vehicle being driven to the scene of the blast," he added.
Dakayev said investigators were examining three versions of what had happened. One version is that the militants were attempting to intimidate the interior ministry and the police, in response to the intensified efforts of these bodies to combat the militants in the past year.
He added that it was a matter of honor for the heads of the republican interior ministry to solve this crime.
"We have mobilized the best and the most experienced personnel to investigate this crime and I am certain that the terrorists will be punished," Dakayev said.
He said that the Russian Interior Ministry and the Chechen President had placed the investigation under their personal control.
Dakayev said that the terrorist attack had killed fourteen people: ten police officers, a Russian Federal Security Service officer, two children and a pensioner. A total of five policeman and nineteen civilians were injured.
