Earlier today, Hetq reported that Meruzhan Mkhoyan, an independent candidate for MP in Election District 21, was beaten up during a brawl   in the Sardarapat village of Armavir Marz.

Hours later, in an attempt to talk directly to Mkhoyan, this reporter went to his house but was blocked from entering by a group of young men outside.

They told me and other reporters that the news of a fight was incorrect and that Mkhoyan hadn’t been beaten. His wife had earlier claimed the opposite.

As we were negotiating with the men, an elderly woman came out from the house and screamed, “Let them come in.”

The men whisked the woman back inside the house, not letting her talk to us.

They told us the woman was sick. When we demanded to be permitted to enter the house, one of the men exclaimed, “She’s a sick woman. Do you want her to die?”

As we were leaving, a car stopped alongside. A woman got out, claiming to be the daughter of Meruzhan Mkhoyan’s brother.

She told us that her pregnant daughter had been in the house that morning when a group of men entered and dragged him away. The woman later learnt that they had taken Mkhoyan to the Sardarapat cemetery and beat him.

She also claimed that by the time Mkhoyan’s sons got to the cemetery, they found their father on his knees, ready to be executed.

The woman named the son of Republican Party MP Nahapet Gevorgyan as one of the ringleaders.

“They want Meruzhan to withdraw from the race because he’s a respected man in Hoktemberyan and they know he will win,” she said. “Everyone knows what these guys have done. This is the second or third such incident.”

The local police are now conducting a criminal investigation

Levon Khorozyan, who heads the campaign headquarters of Aleksan Petrosyan, the Republican Party candidate for the same district, told me they had no connection to the incident.

Given the fact that no one wants to press charges, it seems that the matter will be conveniently closed.