“At first I heard gunshots. Then there was an explosion,” says Max Zaretsky, who lives opposite the school. “After that there was screaming. Children were running to the fence.
‘Oh my God. They’re killing us!’ one little girl screamed. That was the moment I realized it wasn’t an accident and that something horrible had happened.”
What happened here was a 19-year-old former student of the school had returned with one aim: to kill. He gunned down students and staff. Inside School No 175 there was panic. To escape, some children jumped out of windows. Others, like 10th grader Alisa Zobleva, barricaded themselves into classrooms.
“We shut the doors and we froze,” Alisa says “Then we had minutes of stress and panic. Someone knocked on the door. We thought it was the man with the gun. Ten minutes later there was another knock. [The police] broke down the door and we were rescued.”
The attacker was eventually taken into custody. Russian media have named him as Ilnaz Galyaviev. Under interrogation he reportedly said he had come to believe that he was God and indicated he had been driven by hatred.
Again the classmates termed him as a really quiet guy when they knew him. Everyone is puzzled by the situation leaving a big question why did he decide the act of all his trait of silence.
People have left flowers and soft toys at a makeshift memorial for victims.
