Russia mourns blasts' victims; president vows tough anti-terror laws

With police scrambling hard to nab the perpetrators of the twin suicide bombings on Moscow metro, president Dmitry Medvedev today sought tough anti-terror laws to combat the menace, amid moving tributes by Russians to the 39 people killed in the worst attack in Moscow in six years.

"We need to focus our attention on certain aspects of improving legislation aimed at preventing terrorist acts," Medvedev said in televised remarks, a day after two suspected Chechen woman suicide bombers targeted the subway system.

He called for measures to step up the efficiency of law enforcement agencies, increase the safety of public places and transport systems as well as to improve the implementation of the country's anti-terrorism statutes.

Russian security officials hinted that the attacks could have been plotted by militant groups linked to the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus region, commonly referred to as Chechnya, media reports said.

Security sources were quoted as saying that the two woman suicide bombers boarded a metro train together at the Yugo-Zapadnaya station. Interfax reported that they were accompanied to the station by another two women and a man who were photographed by CCTV.

"We have been destroying terrorists and will continue to destroy them. In recent years have learnt how to do this," Medvedev said.

During a meeting with the chair of Council on Civil and Human Rights Ella Panfilova, Medvedev underscored that the state policy in the Caucasus should be "reasonable and modern."

"The main task of the federal government is to create favourable life conditions in the Caucasus region jointly with the local authorities," he stressed.

Prime minister Vladimir Putin told the country's security agencies that it was a "prestige issue" for them to locate the organisers of yesterday's attacks.

Addressing a Cabinet meeting convened to discuss security arrangements on the public transport system, Putin said: "We know that in the given situation they (terrorists) are hiding on the bottom, but it is a prestige issue for the law enforcement agencies to pick them out in to the sunlight from the bottom of the stinking sewer. And I am confident that this will be done." Putin, in his televised remarks, noted that one of the blown carriages of metro train had CCTV camera, which could not prevent the terror act, but was helpful in locating the organisers.

As the country observed the 'Day of Mourning' in memory of the victims of the blasts, commuters broke their journey at Lubyanka and Park Kultury metro stations to place flowers at the makeshift boards, marking the area on platforms where  most of the people died yesterday in globally-condemned attacks.

A day after the blasts, there were unusually fewer commuters in the metro during the morning rush hours, with trains running half-empty.

Many people, who were unable to overcome their metro phobia, came by surface transport to pay tributes to the fellow travellers who died in the blasts. They lit candles and placed flowers at the sites.

Last evening, shortly after the reopening of the Red Line for thorough traffic, president Medvedev visited Lubyanka station with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to pay tributes to the victims by laying a bouquet of red flowers.

Flags flew at half mast and security in the metro network and central streets was tightened.

Meanwhile, the toll in the twin bombings rose to 39, with the death of a woman in hospital.

"One critically wounded woman died in Sklifosovsky Hospital overnight," Moscow health chief Andrei Seltsovsky told state-run Rossiya 24 news channel.

In all 84 people sought medical assistance, 71 are undergoing treatment in four Moscow clinics, out of which five are in grave condition, he said.

The blasts in the underground railway stations revived the nightmare Moscow had witnessed on February 6, 2004 when a suicide bombing on a moving metro train had claimed 42 lives. Same year in an August attack, 10 people were killed outside another metro station.