DUSHANBE, November 5, 2013, Asia-Plus — Tajik Railways (Tajik state railway company) has estimated damage caused by recent attack on a Tajik train crossing Russian territory at 1,500 somoni (little more than 300 USD).
An official source at Tajik Railways says that this is the cost of 22 square meters of window glasses that were broken during an October 26 attack on the Tajik train that was waiting at the Ternovka station in the Russian oblast of Voronezh.
“The incident is not yet over and a special commission is still working to assess the actual damage caused to the Tajik train,” the source said.
An official at the Tajik Embassy in Moscow said on October 29 that the attackers shouted nationalist slogans.
A statement released by Russia’s Ministry of Interior, however, denied any nationalist overtones to the attack, saying investigations are under way to locate and identify the hooligans. The ministry”s transportation directorate issued a statement on October 30 saying that attackers had stoned the train, breaking windows in 16 cars.
Officials from the state Tajik Railways Company said they had sent a note to their counterpart, demanding investigations into what they said were two attacks — one on a train operating on the Moscow-Dushanbe line and another on the Moscow-Khujand route.
Meanwhile, eight cars of the Tajik train derailed in Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh province have already been repaired in Uzbekistan and returned to Tajikistan.
We will recall that the Tajik train transporting 200 young army conscripts from Dushanbe to Tajikistan”s northern Sughd province derailed on October 10 in Uzbekistan”s Jizzakh region, injuring dozens.
Uzbek authorities reportedly accepted responsibility for the Tajik train”s derailing on its territory. A joint Tajik-Uzbek commission had concluded the accident was caused by Uzbek authorities” failure to inform the Tajik side about repair works on the railways in Uzbekistan”s Jizzakh Province region. Uzbekistan agreed to cover all expenses related to the accident and the treatment of those affected by it.
