MOSCOW - The head of the Russian parliamentary commission investigating the Beslan school siege that left 331 dead last year said Wednesday that local law enforcement officials negligently ignored instructions to strengthen school security ahead of the terrorist attack.

Alexander Torshin told parliament that Russia's interior minister and his deputy sent telegrams less than two weeks before the militants' raid instructing regional police to beef up security on the first day of school.

"That could have prevented the terrorist attack," Torshin said.

Instead, a single policewoman was posted outside the school on the day of the siege. She was taken hostage, he said.

Torshin said that local authorities had sharply underreported the number of hostages during the early stages of the crisis. Survivors have said that the misinformation infuriated the hostage-takers, who were demanding that Russian troops withdraw from the nearby breakaway province of Chechnya.

The Islamic fighters seized 1,128 pupils, their teachers and parents in the southern Russian town on Sept. 1, 2004, provoking a three-day standoff ending in a raid, gunfire and explosions. The dead included 186 children.

Officials said on the first two days of the crisis that only 354 people had been taken hostage, an apparent attempt to downplay the grim news and reduce public alarm.

Torshin said the decision to report the lower number was taken by the local head of the Federal Security Service, Valery Andreyev, who has been taken off active duty. Torshin also blamed Andreyev, who headed the crisis headquarters in Beslan, for poor coordination between law enforcement authorities.

"The counter-terrorist operation was plagued by shortcomings," Torshin said. "Many law-enforcement officers did not know how to act in an emergency situation."

The officials singled out by Torshin, a member of the Kremlin-controlled upper house of parliament, worked for local and regional branches of Russian federal agencies. Those branches report to Moscow but control their own hiring, training and other day-to-day operations.

Torshin's preliminary report was the third official account of the events in Beslan. It had not been expected to sharply criticize high-ranking officials but did conflict sharply with a preliminary report by federal prosecutors Monday that exonerated security forces.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement Monday that his probe so far had not revealed any mistakes by authorities.

The rebels crossed heavily policed territory to reach Beslan, and victims' relatives are convinced they got help from corrupt officials. The families also have strongly criticized the rescue operation, saying hostages died needlessly because special forces used flame-throwers, grenade launchers and tanks against the militants.

"You need to punish those who did not carry out their duties properly. Our children are no longer with us," Susanna Dudiyeva, head of the Beslan Mothers' Committee, told The Associated Press. "The most painful questions are left unanswered."

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the prosecutor general's report that exonerated authorities, and initially resisted the establishment of an independent commission by the parliament.

Liberal lawmaker Vladimir Ryzhkov criticized Torshin for not focusing attention on high-ranking federal authorities in Tuesday's report. Torshin said his investigators would later evaluate those authorities' roles.

"It is an attempt to put the blame on regional and local law enforcers and not on the leaders of federal ministries, who in my view bear responsibility for what happened," Ryzhkov told The Associated Press. "They didn't take preventive measures, they didn't check how their orders were being carried out."

Five senior policemen have been charged with criminal negligence for failing to prevent the raid by not stopping the militants on roads leading to the school. Preliminary hearings in the trial of three were to open on Wednesday.

The sole surviving hostage-taker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, pleaded not guilty to charges of terrorism and murder and is currently on trial.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)