A Chechen lawmaker on Thursday slammed the idea of fingerprinting all North Caucasus residents as a violation of their human and civil rights.

Earlier in the day, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office Investigating Committee, proposed instituting mandatory fingerprinting and DNA profiling of all people living in the North Caucasus Federal District, including refugees and migrants, as a means of combating rampant crime in the region.

Chechen lawmaker Ziyad Sabsabi said that by proposing such measures, the state effectively violated the presumption of innocence.

"By this logic, all Russian nationals living in the Russian Federation should be subjected to fingerprinting," he said.

He said he doubted the measure would help fight crime, because criminals, terrorists "or their ideologues" could "easily move around Russia" and register at other federal districts.

Sabsabi said the most effective way of combating crime and terrorism "is the creation of new jobs, dealing with unemployment and building new plants and factories."

MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti)