DUSHANBE, October 12, 2015, Asia-Plus -- Russian authorities say they have arrested a group of people planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Moscow.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Sunday that a group of people who were plotting a terrorist attack in the Russian capital have been detained.  The Anti-Terrorism Committee added that an improvised explosive device had been found and defused.

Russia’s news agency TASS quoted a spokesman for the National Antiterrorism Committee Andrey Chatskiy as saying that the perpetrators were arrested in an apartment in central Moscow.

The operation was reportedly carried out as part of a series of criminal investigations resulting in the arrest of an unspecified number of people.

“Law enforcers are working with ten people to establish the role of each of them in the preparations for a terrorist act,” Chatskiy said.

A police source said a possible yield of the explosive device could exceed four kilograms of TNT.  According to the source, the operation was conducted in an apartment on the last, ninth, floor of the building.  More than 120 residents were asked to leave the house. Gas supplies to the house were cut during the special operation.

Currently, police are patrolling the area.