MOSCOW, December 26 (RAPSI) – Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, on Tuesday approved a draft law toughening punishment for false reports of terrorist attacks up to 10 years in prison.

The bill passed its third and final reading in the State Duma on December 20.

Amendments drafted by Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation, have been proposed to Russia’s Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code.

The bill stipulates punishment from 6 to 8 years in prison for false reports of terrorism resulted in mass evacuation of people from social infrastructure facilities, in particular health care, educational, recreation and leisure organizations, kindergartens, sports and health institutions, passenger transport, banks and others.

Moreover, the draft law toughens penalties for the so-called telephone terrorism led to a person’s death or other grave consequences. These actions would be punishable by imprisonment of 8 to 10 years.

The legislative initiative is aimed to suppress widely occurring telephone terrorism, according to Krasheninnikov.

Starting September 11, 2017, phone reports of alleged terrorist attacks became more frequent in Russia. Nearly 450,000 people have been evacuated from schools, hospitals, shopping centers, transport and airports in more than 13 cities and towns since then. About 1,000 anonymous terrorism calls have been recorded. Minimum damage caused by these actions is estimated at 1 billion rubles ($16.5 million).