An Uzbek woman working in Russia as a nanny has been arrested after being accused of beheading a 4-year-old girl and burning down her house. Authorities, however, have not yet revealed the suspect's possible motives for the crime.
According to eyewitnesses, the woman, named Gyulchehra Bobokulva, was seen at a subway station in Moscow wearing a black hijab and holding a small package on Feb. 29. All of a sudden, she began screaming the phrase "Allahu Akbar" and telling everyone at the station that she hates democracy and is a terrorist. She also threatened those around her that she will blow herself up, BBC has learned.
Bobokulva then pulled out a dismembered head of a female child out of the package and waved it around. Police officers on the scene immediately tackled and apprehended her. Despite her threats, they did not find any explosive device on her body.
According to investigators, before the incident at the subway station, the house where the victim and her family lived burned down. Those who responded to the fire then saw the decapitated body of the girl.
The parents of the victim noted that Bobokulova has been working for their family for three years. They said that she never displayed any unusual behavior during her time with them and had always been a good nanny to the victim.
Although her motives for the crime remain unclear, authorities suspect that they might have something to do with her trip back to Uzbekistan in December of last year. According to Russian news site Interfax, she spent about a month there before returning to Russia earlier this year.
Currently, investigators are looking into factors that might have affected her during her trip as well as other circumstances that could have psychologically caused her to commit the heinous crime.
Due to the incident, Moscow's Chief Mufti Ildar Alyatdinov reminded members of the public that they should not associate the crime with Muslims or Islam.
"We're talking about an absolutely inadequate person, so it's completely incorrect to associate these actions with Muslims and Islam just based on her dress or some kind of slogans," he said according to The Daily Beast.
