Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin was injured Saturday in a second explosion at the site of the deadly bombing of the Nevsky Express train, the committee said Tuesday.
Bastrykin sought medical assistance after the explosion and has been hospitalized in “satisfactory” condition, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
Markin confirmed Bastrykin’s hospitalization after unidentified law enforcement officials told Russian news agencies that the Investigative Committee chief had suffered a concussion in the explosion, which was detonated by a mobile phone call.
Markin said the second blast was aimed at investigators working at the crime scene and strongly resembled the tactics of North Caucasus insurgents, who have successfully targeted security and law enforcement officials working at crime scenes.
A bomb explosion derailed the luxury train Friday night in the Tver region as it traveled from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The death toll in the bombing rose to 27 on Tuesday after one more body was found in the wreckage. More than 90 people remained hospitalized.
In a possible lead, investigators have found a jacket with several letters written by a prison inmate stuffed in a pocket about 100 meters from a crater left by the bombing, a police official told Interfax on Tuesday. He did not elaborate.
Police were canvassing two villages near the bombing site Tuesday.
Traffic police also are looking for a white Lada hatchback believed to have been used to plant the bomb under the rail, Interfax reported.
Deputy Interior Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky told reporters that police officers would be deployed to guard trains traveling between Moscow and St. Petersburg and police patrols would be beefed up at train stations.
Meanwhile, Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympics Committee, said he believed that Russia would put in place all necessary security arrangements for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Alexei Sorokin, head of Russia’s bid to stage the World Cup in 2018 or 2022, said the train bombing would not harm the country’s bid. “We are a huge nation. We have friends, we have enemies and we are a target like everyone else,” he told reporters in Johannesburg.
In St. Petersburg, mourners paid last respects at funerals for two senior officials killed in the explosion, Sergei Tarasov, head of the state roads company and a former senator, and Boris Yevstratikov, head of the Federal Reserves Agency.