A senior official of Tajik secret services was stabbed to death during a working trip, the first murder of a high-ranking law enforcement official in the country in years.
Attackers stopped Major General Abdullo Nazarov’s car on the road in a remote area outside the city of Khorugh in the Pamir Mountains, dragged him out and stabbed him to death, said his agency, the State Committee for National Safety.
Four other people who were in the same car got away with minor injuries, local police said, without elaborating on the nature of the injuries or on why they offered no resistance to the attackers.
A gang of tobacco smugglers was likely behind the attack, Nazarov’s agency said. Ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia have different tobacco prices due to varying excise taxes, which makes tobacco smuggling a profitable business.
