DUSHANBE, July 14, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- In a statement posted on its official website on July 13, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) gave new details of the organized criminal group that was broken up in southern Tajikistan in early June.

According to a MoI, members of this group are suspected of having committed a number of serious crimes, including murders and terrorist acts.

The June 13 statement says that resident of the village of Bedak in Khatlon’s Panj district, Sherali Adhamov, 37, who was arrested on June 4 this year, jointly with Kyrgyz citizen Sapar Akanov and a certain Davron knocked together an illegal armed group.

The group members were reportedly armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and Makarov pistols.  Over the past several years, members of this criminal group have committed a number of serious crimes in the Panj district, the statement said.

The preliminary investigation has established that in early 2011, Adhamov helped resident of Sughd’s Isfara district Bakhtiyor Qironov, 30, and several his confederates from among militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) illegally cross Tajikistan’s border.