Militants who had stormed and seized the parliament building in Russia's troubled region of Chechnya were on Tuesday shot dead during the stand-off, according to the police.
The militants had earlier taken hostages and killed at least two security guards, officials said. Heavily-armed unspecified number of militants and suicide bombers had stormed into the Parliament building in the provincial capital Grozny, according to RIA Novosti news agency report.
As militants raced into the building after overpowering the guards, a suicide bomber blew himself up on the grounds of the premises near the office of speaker, killing two people and wounding many others. According to other reports, the militants had also launched simultaneous attacks on other state buildings in the most deadly attack since the Beslan high school hostage crisis in 2004.
Speaker Abdurahmanov, who was in the parliament building, was reported to be safe.
According to some sources, the shooting was taking place in the office of the parliament speaker. The attack coincided with the visit of Federal Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to Grozny, who was immediately informed about the attack.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is personally supervising the operation to flush out the militants from the building.
In 2004, over 330 people were killed in Russia's most shocking hostage tragedy when Chechen militants stormed a school in the town of Beslan in the Northern Cacuasus region of North Ossetia. PTI
