On February 26, several minor rallies were held at Lenin Square in Sumgait. Explicit calls for violence against Armenians and for their expulsion from Azerbaijan were heard and the crowds were agitated by news of Azerbaijani refugees who had fled Armenia (from the towns Kapan and Masis). Certain individuals told stories of murders and violence purportedly carried out by Armenians against the Azerbaijanis. Soviet authorities would later cast these individuals as agents provocateur. One individual, according to the Soviet press, was later revealed not to be a resident of Kapan, as he had claimed, but a criminal with a prior arrest record. Zardusht Alizadeh, who was active in the social and political life of Azerbaijan from 1988–1989 and was one of the founders of Azerbaijani Popular Front, visited Sumgait ten days after the pogrom and met with the workers from the aluminum factory, and reported that locals said that people from out of town had been inciting the violence. Baku's local Party leader Fuad Musayev, who was called back to Baku because of the unrest, stated in the interview given to Thomas de Waal, "Someone was provoking them, propaganda work was going on."