Court In Kazan Shuts Down Islamic Cultural Center

A court in Kazan, the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan, has ruled that an Islamic center operating in the city must be shut down.

Investigators say the Islamic Cultural Center "Family" has been distributing Islamic text books and providing religious lessons without a license.

Tatarstan's authorities have begun checking all religious organizations and groups in the republic after police in August found an Islamic sect consisting of 27 children and 38 adults living in catacomb-like cells.

The cells had been dug on eight levels under a house in Kazan.

On July 19, Tatarstan's Muslim religious leader, Mufti Ildus Faizov was injured in a car bombing and his former deputy Valiulla Yakupov was shot dead in attacks conducted by suspected followers of radical Islam.

With reporting by Interfax and tatar-inform.ru