Three policemen from special task forces were wounded in an explosion late on Tuesday evening in Grozny, the capital of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a spokesman for the local investigative committee said.
"An explosive device went off, when a group of policemen approached a four-storey apartment building on the Derbentskaya street," the spokesman said. "They wanted to investigate a tip-off about a militant hiding in one of the apartments."
The explosive device, he added, could have been hidden among sacks with coal used by the cafeteria, situated on the first floor of the building, for cooking purposes.
An investigation is underway, he said.
The Kremlin ended its decade-long antiterrorism campaign against separatists in Chechnya in April 2009, but has since had to intensify the fight against militants as skirmishes and attacks on police and officials have continued in the republic and around it.
GROZNY, February 9 (RIA Novosti)