Moscow, April 06: A resident of Dagestan, Russia, has gone on record saying one of the two alleged Moscow metro suicide bombers was his daughter, a schoolteacher.
Rasul Magomedov told Russian weekly Novaya Gazeta that the woman who blew up the Lubyanko metro station was his daughter Mariam Sharipova.
Magomedov, a resident of Dagestan in the troubled North Caucasus, said he and his wife had recognised Mariam in a photograph which was being circulated on the internet, supposedly that of the second bomber.
“ We had not known where our daughter was for several days. The last time my wife saw our daughter, she was wearing the same red scarf as in the photograph,” he said.
Soon after he got wind of his daughter’s supposed role in the bombing which killed 40 people and wounded several others, Magomedov gave a statement at the local prosecutor’s office on Saturday.
Several other people, including civil servants, were quoted by Novaya Gazeta saying it was “ definitely Mariam” in the photo.
Magomedov also told the Russian daily, Kommersant, that he had gone to the police on April 3 and deposited a sample of his DNA. Mariam was born in 1982 in Dagestan’s Balakhan village.
Her parents were both teachers at the local school. She studied maths and psychology and graduated with distinction in 2005, before returning to Balakhan to teach computer science at the school.
“ We still cannot believe it. We cannot even work out what she was doing in Moscow,” Magomedov said.
“ She was devout but she never expressed any radical opinions. She always lived at home. We always knew what she was up to,” he said.
Russian security services had told Magomedov on March 4 that his 28- year- old daughter was married to a terrorist leader, Magomedali Vagabov.
“ I asked my daughter if it was true but she said she didn’t have any connection with the underground resistance and would never marry without my consent,” he said.
The other suicide bomber was identified as 17- year- old Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova ( Abdulayeva), a “ Black Widow” from Khasavyurt in northern Dagestan.
–Agencies