An 18-year-old man who was killed by police after beheading a teacher in Paris has received a hero’s funeral attended by hundreds of people in his native Chechnya, according to reports.

Abdullakh Anzorov decapitated Samuel Paty, 47, in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in October after the teacher showed his students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad as a way of demonstrating freedom of speech in a class discussion.

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Security personnel closed the village except to local residents, while more than 60 law enforcement officers were on duty at the funeral, which was attended by friends and relatives, the outlet reported.

“There are still traffic jams in neighboring villages because of the large number of people who want to attend the funeral,” a Telegram channel said late Sunday.

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“He is a hero for the whole Islamic world,” the head of the Shalazhi administration was quoted as saying. “It was a normal funeral. I was certainly there, and expressed my condolences to his relatives. That is my duty.”

While Paty’s murder shocked France, prominent voices in Chechnya, including strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, have cast blame on the country’s secularism and President Emmanuel Macron for allowing images of Muhammad as “provocations and attacks on the faith,” the Guardian reported.

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