DUSHANBE, November 5, 2013, Asia-Plus – Eight teenagers, aged 15 to 18, have been detained in Russia for stoning a Tajik train, Russian news paper Argumenty i Fakty reported on November 5.

The teens have reportedly confessed to stoning the train.  “Reconstruction of events allows drawing the conclusion that there were no any nationalist overtones in the incident,” the newspaper said.

We will recall that a Tajik train operating on the Moscow-Dushanbe route was attacked by a group of young men on October 26 while it was waiting at the Ternovka railway station in Russia’s Voronezh oblast.     

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 Tajik state railway company, Tajik Railways, 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.

Tajik Railways has estimated damage caused by recent attack on the Tajik train operating on the Moscow-Dushanbe line 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 the attack.

“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 added.