Uznews.net – Rumours about the killings of children by a group of unidentified individuals in residential areas to remove their organs have been dreading residents of Tashkent for the past two weeks.

The body of a seven-year-old girl without viscera was found in Tashkent’s Sergeli district. A similar crime was reported in Tashkent’s TTZ district where the body of a nine-year-old boy was found, local residents said.

Tenants of blocks of flats near the Kuylyuk market said that the dismembered bodies of a man and a woman had been found in a local rubbish dump.

An official of the Uzbek Prosecutor-General’s Office who asked not to name him said that a group of criminals had been killing people to take their organs in the capital. They sell these organs in Western countries, he suggested.

Ordinary people also witnessed such findings. Svetlana Artykova, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General’s Office, indirectly confirmed that a number of murders had been committed in Tashkent.

“Tragic events have indeed taken place in the city. An operation to detain criminals who have killed several citizens is under way,” Artykova said.

The worst thing that is stressed by both ordinary people and police officers is that the motive of these crimes is to get hold of organs of victims.

The authorities’ unwillingness to disclose this circumstance is clear: they do not want to create panic. At the same time, teachers were ordered to talk to schoolchildren and explain to them that there were criminals in the city who wanted organs of little children.

A teacher of school No 266 in Tashkent said on condition of anonymity that beat officers had been explaining the situation to teachers.

“We are told at these meetings that criminals target small children. They are easily deceived and their organs are healthy,” the teacher said, adding that it is becoming dangerous to live in the city.

Actually, despite the fact that Uzbekistan is regarded as police state, these crimes and the impotence of police show that huge numbers of officers are not an indicator of the efficiency of their work.

The criminal situation is worsening in Tashkent, ordinary residents said. It seems that while police have been recovering from the celebrations of Independence Day and the 2200th anniversary of Tashkent, criminals have become very active.

Experts believe that the deteriorating criminal situation shows that the poor socioeconomic situation in the country is becoming a favourable ground for criminals, thus turning Tashkent, which used to boast about its safety, into an increasingly dangerous city.