Rights activists and news reports say at least one home has been destroyed in Russia's Chechnya region despite President Vladimir Putin's warning against extrajudicial reprisals.
Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, drew condemnation from rights groups when he said after a December 4 attack on the regional capital that relatives of militants responsible for deadly attacks would be driven from Chechnya and their homes destroyed.
Several homes in the region were subsequently torched.
Asked about the issue at an annual press conference last week, Putin said that Kadyrov's "emotional" reaction was understandable, but that nobody has the right to mete out punishment without a court decision.
The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported on December 19 that a home in the village of Koshkeldy had been razed overnight.
A rights activist in Chechnya, Sergei Babinets, said on Facebook that he and a colleague went to the village, found an empty lot, and spoke to neighbors who said the home there had been destroyed by unknown individuals.
