Six persons have been detained on suspicion of killing an entrepreneur couple in the northern Sughd province.  

“The detainees are residents of Dushanbe and the Khatlon province,” a source at the Sughd police directorate told Asia-Plus in an interview.

The source refrained from giving further details just saying that the detainees are suspected of being involved in a number of other robberies committed in the province.

Recall, 60-year-old entrepreneur couple Maqsoudjon Nematulloyev and Inobat Nematulloyeva were found brutally killed in their house in the Unji jamaot, the Bobojon-Ghafourov district of the Sughd province in the morning of October 19, 2017. 

“Their son found them killed while came to their house to wake them,” Muhsin Yusupov, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s office for Sughd province, told Asia-Plus in an interview.  

According to him, a special group has been set up to investigate the incident.

Meantime, the couple’s relatives say they were tortured before being killed.  Their mouths were closed with scotch tape and there were traces of torture on their bodies, the relatives said.  

Maqsoudjon Nematulloyev and Inobat Nematulloyeva were running a shop at Khujand’s Panshanbe bazaar.  They were frequently lending money to entrepreneurs and have many debtors. 

A source at the Tajik law enforcement authorities says the criminals seized about 70,000 U.S. dollars and other valuables.