Muslim Sect in Russia




(Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia)

Four members of a reclusive Muslim sect in the Russian region of Tatarstan have been charged with cruelty against children for allegedly keeping them underground.

Police found 27 children and 38 adults living in catacomb-like cells, dug on eight levels under the home of the sect's founder. It is not clear how long the children were kept underground.

The founder, 83-year-old Faizrakhman Satarov, who declared himself a Muslim prophet in contradiction with the principles of Islam, was also charged with negligence and arbitrariness on Wednesday, Irina Petrova, deputy prosecutor in the provincial capital of Kazan, told the Associated Press news agency.

No members of the sect, who call themselves "muammin" after the Arabic term that means "believers", have been arrested, Petrova said.

The sect was uncovered in a suburb of the city of Kazan during an investigation into recent attacks on Muslim clerics in Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim region on the River Volga.

The leader Satarov claimed his house was an independent Islamic state. Russian authorities disagreed.