MAKHACHKALA, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - A judge shot dead in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan Saturday was most likely killed due to his professional activity, regional investigators said Sunday.

According to preliminary data, the killer came to federal judge Akhmed Radzhabov’s house and called him outside. Later he fired some seven shots at Radzhabov, who died from wounds on the site.

The attack occurred Saturday evening in the city of Izberbash on the Caspian Sea coast. An investigation is underway.

This was the second murder of a judge in Dagestan in the past two months. In mid-January a Dagestani Supreme Court judge was killed in the republic’s capital Makhachkala.

The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to the republic of Chechnya, has spread across the North Caucasus in recent years. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Over a decade after the war against Islamist separatists in Chechnya ended, Russian security forces continue to fight militants in the volatile region.