DUSHANBE, June 15, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- An arms cache has been discovered at a site for construction of an apartment building in Dushanbe, according to the Ministry of Interior (MoI).

The source at a MoI said the arms cache was discovered at the site for construction of apartment building at the Huvaydulloyev Street in Dushanbe on June 13.  “Sub-machine-gun Kalashnikov and 1,133 bullets of different caliber were extracted from the hide,” the source said.

The MoI officials say that such arms caches are a legacy of the five-year civil war that ended in the country in 1997.  According to Mahmadullo Asadulloyev, a spokesman for the MoI, police officers alone have confiscated more than 31,000 weapons from the population since 1994, when president’s decree on voluntary handover of weapons was issued.