On 7 December 2021, the press office of Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations circulated an official statement regarding an accident that had happened in the early hours of that same day in the indenim shopping complex located in the Denau district. According to the officially released information, there was an explosion of air-gas mixture, as a result of which the building was partially destroyed, nine people were hospitalized with various injuries. Later on two lifeless bodies were discovered under the rubble.

In order to examine the incident, a government commission headed by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Ochilboy Ramatov visited the accident scene.

The official version of the accident was soon issued by the Uzbek authorities, but even a simple visual inspection of the site vitiates it completely. Noteworthy, the official version is not supported by the forensic explosives examination. Information obtained from independent sources suggests that official Tashkent is hiding the true reasons behind the tragedy that took place in one of the “Indenim” shops.

Hard facts

7 December, 4 am. A powerful explosion rocked the “Indenim” shopping centre in the town of Denau in the Surkhandarya province of Uzbekistan, waking all the citizens of the nearby districts. The building of the shopping centre is just next door to the headquarters of the local administration.

The explosion was so powerful that it not only completely destroyed the two-storey building of the shopping complex, but also significantly damaged offices, residential and other buildings within a four-kilometre radius of the blast site.

The death toll from the explosion must have been at least 15 people, as it is known that at the time of the accident, there were ca. 15 handymen in the basement of the shopping centre. They slept there during the night after their day-time shift.

The workers had been brought in from neighbouring districts and regions to carry out some repair work inside the complex. According to the eyewitnesses, the real number of the dead and the wounded was much higher than the official figures. According to them, a powerful explosive device went off in one of the premises of the shopping centre.

This explains why during the rescue workers the Emergencies Ministry officers recovered numerous fragments of burnt human bodies from under the wreckage of the building.

Noticeably, the authorities started dismantling the building destroyed by the explosion the very next day, not waiting till the investigation was completed.

Given the power of the blast, its location, the scale of the destruction and the fact that all entries and exits from the city were placed under tight control, the main version of the explosion in Denau should be a terrorist act.

Mirziyoyev’s pocket media

The Denau blast was a litmus test that exposed the true face of the Uzbek media, but not only that. It also exposed numerous so-called private activist bloggers, MPs, as well as civic leaders who have a large social media audience.

Since the time Mirziyoyev illegally seized power in the country, mass media has been tirelessly working on his image, in order to project an ignorant, incompetent and mentally unstable person as a reformer and a leader of the nation.

The bloggers and civic activists have been continuously building up a story about him being a “good padishah” compromised by his “bad viziers”. As a result, not a single Uzbek newspaper, Uzbek YouTube or Telegram channel questioned the official version of the tragedy that shook Denau. Notwithstanding the fact that there are plenty of reasons and enough information not to believe the Uzbek authorities. Yet, the mass media brazenly lie to their audience by voicing the official version and confirming that the explosion occurred because of some faulty gas equipment.

This fact is another clear proof of Mirziyoyev’s deceitful policy of the so-called freedom of speech and free media proclaimed in Uzbekistan.

Once elections are over, terror kicks off

Surkhandarya province is situated on the very border with Afghanistan, which makes it a very convenient transit point for drug traffickers. Both the previous government and the anti-people government of Mirziyoyev are using the Uzbek territory to arrange transit routes for the Afghan heroin. From there, drugs go to Russia, en route to European countries.

Whoever controls Surkhandarya district controls the drug trafficking in Uzbekistan.

For decades the Uzbek security services, headed by Rustam Inoyatov, have been providing a safe and uninterrupted transit route – the so called “northern route” – for drug trafficking arranged by terrorist organizations in Afghanistan.

Rustam Inoyatov was born on 22 June 1944 in the Sherabad district of the Surkhandarya province, in a family of Central Asian Iranians. He is fluent in Persian. In other words, a person of Irani origin has been at the head of the Uzbek security services.

In autumn 2016, a coup d’état was carried out in Uzbekistan, in which the Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved. At that time a redistribution of spheres of influence began in the country. Since then, Mirziyoyev has started selling all the strategically important facilities to the Kremlin oligarchs, for a token price.

In 2017, the control over the “northern route” of drug trafficking from Afghanistan went over to Batyr Rajabovich Tursunov, whose son married Mirziyoyev’s daughter.

Since then, Mirziyoyev has been applying soft power to administer step-by-step changes inside the administrative and law enforcement bodies in the Surkhandarya Province. He has been gradually replacing the old cadres with his own people – as ignorant as himself, but undoubtedly loyal.

Some owners of business enterprises were replaced by other loyal people, with the use of the classical land grabbing strategies from the times of the Wild West. A number of time-tested methods has been implemented, namely threats, arson, murder, falsification of criminal cases, long-term imprisonment of unwanted businessmen, etc.

In May 2017, for example, two large and profitable clothing markets in Surkhandarya province burned to the ground within a short period of time, killing a few people. There were other similar cases as well. Interestingly, in all the cases, commercial facilities caught fire in the night time, which should have led one to think of deliberate arson.

After the fraudulent victory in the second presidential election in Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev went on a decisive offensive and began a total sweep of the old cadres.

On 5 November 2021, he got rid of his main rival, Rustam Inoyatov who remained very influential in his native region of Uzbekistan. Inoyatov was removed from his position of a presidential adviser.

It’s worth pointing out, that the destroyed “Indenim” complex, earlier known as “Jubileyny” shopping centre, belonged to persons affiliated with the former head of the Uzbek security services. It was necessary for Mirziyoyev to arrange an act of intimidation, so that he could put an end to the intransigent owners of the business structures and to show Inoyatov and the heads of the other Uzbekistan clans who is the real ruler in the region.

On the 7th of December, early in the morning, a terrorist act was committed in Denau’s “Indenim” shopping centre. This happened under the watchful eye of Batyr Tursunov and with the direct involvement of his agency.

Dozens of peaceful and innocent people were killed. A lot of people were injured. Tens of thousands of residents of Denau were severely stressed by the attack. Millions of Uzbek citizens started hating Mirziyoyev’s authorities for their meanness, cowardice and deceitfulness.

“Indenim”, associated with the Tursunov family, will be able to wash away the blood of innocently murdered people off their brand. It’s no longer a secret that monstrous personalities hide behind the pretty facade of the indenim clothing brand. It’s not hidden from public eyes that “Indenim” uses fraudulent schemes and tax evasion. 90% of the company’s employees don’t work officially, their employment is merely based on an oral agreement.

By organising a terrorist attack in one of its own shopping malls, the Mirziyoyev regime has paved the way towards further terrorist actions against the people of Uzbekistan.

Having unleashed the machine of terror, Shavkat Mirziyoyev hopes to achieve his low goals, namely: resetting the number of his presidential terms back to zero, introducing constitutional changes aimed at further limiting the rights and the freedoms of the Uzbek people, creating and implicating in Uzbekistan the Chinese model of a digital concentration camp, etc.

Only time will tell whether Mirziyoyev’s regime will be able to achieve its goals. However, one can confidently state the fact that the seeds of freedom and struggle sown by the political opposition movement Erkin O’zbekiston in the minds of the Uzbek people have already germinated and are taking root in their hearts. People are preparing themselves for an uncompromising struggle against the deceitful and terrorist regime of Mirziyoyev – until it can be completely defeated!