Members of an eccentric Muslim sect in Russia who are said to have kept their families in catacombs under their house have disputed the accusation and vehemently denied charges of child abuse.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Gumar Ganiyev, the Caliph or “head of state” of the 70-strong group, vowed that he and his followers would throw themselves in front of bulldozers if local authorities try to knock down the dwelling, as they have threatened.
The reported discovery of a subterranean Islamic sect including 27 children living in a rabbit-warren of cells caused an international sensation earlier this week. The minors, allegedly kept beneath a home in the mostly-Muslim republic of Tatarstan, were taken into care after a police raid.
But Mr Ganiyev, wearing a grubby green tunic and a turban, claimed the accusations were false when he emerged from the home at 41 Torfyanaya Street near the edge of Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, about 500 miles east of Moscow.
“We are an independent state of Allah, not a sect, and everyone who is not with us, the devil-unbelievers, is our enemy,” he said. “Our members do not leave the premises without my permission. But such lies have been spread about us. They say our children went years without seeing daylight. In truth, they run around all day in the yard and go swimming in the river beyond our fence.”
The group does not allow non-members on to its territory, but Mr Ganiyev insisted that local officials’ claims that the group lived in “an underground anthill on eight different levels” were “lies, because they hate us for being on the path of Allah”. “We have a basement which has two rooms without windows and none of the children sleep there,” he said.