Police sources said that they believe religious hatred could have been the motive behind the attack
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A man dressed as Father Frost in Kyrgyzstan. A similarly dressed man in Tajikistan has been killed in what police say was an attack driven by religious hatred. Photograph: Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters
A young man dressed as "Father Frost" – Russia's equivalent of Father Christmas – was stabbed to death in Tajikistan on Monday in an attack police believe was motivated by religious hatred.
A crowd attacked Parviz Davlatbekov, 24, and stabbed him with a knife as he visited relatives in the early hours of Monday dressed as Father Frost, who by tradition brings Russian children presents at New Year. Russian cultural influence remains strong in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic.
"We have witness statements that say the crowd beat Parviz and stabbed him with a knife, shouting: 'You infidel!'," a source said.
The second source said religious hatred was being investigated as the motive for the crime, which occurred in the capital, Dushanbe.
Tajikistan is officially secular, though the vast majority of its 7.7m people are Muslims. Authorities have cracked down on religious freedoms in the last few years and jailed dozens of people for membership of Islamist groups.
President Imomali Rakhmon has ordered students at foreign religious schools to return home and told his security services to tighten control over religious education and mosques in Tajikistan, which he says are often used to foment radicalism.
His critics say poverty and repression in the poorest of the 15 former Soviet republics is pushing many young Tajiks toward radical Islamism. The country, where tens of thousands died in a civil war in the 1990s, shares a long border with Afghanistan.
Tokhir Normatov, chief of staff of Tajikistan's interior ministry, said the victim had died in hospital from a loss of blood, but made no comment on the motive for the attack.
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