Murder of bride abductor in Ingushetia creates pretext for blood feud

According to local customs, relatives of the Ingush resident, who was killed after the abducting the bride, can declare blood feud against the killer. Besides, the bride's fate is alarming, since earlier her relatives were against this marriage, and now they can kill her for disobedience, Svetlana Anokhina, a journalist, has stressed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 19, the body of a 29-year-old local resident was brought to the Ingush Republic's Clinical Hospital with gunshot wounds. On May 23, investigators announced the arrest of a suspected killer. According to investigators, he shot the man dead after he had abducted his sister aiming to marry her. The young man and the girl lived in the village of Ekazhevo and had known each other for a long time, but the girl's parents were against their relationship, a fellow villager has explained.

The assassinated Ibragim Dzortov had earlier abducted the girl, and then sent the elders of his clan to her relatives for matchmaking, but they refused to give their daughter to Ibragim and demanded to return her home, and Ibragim was told not even to come close to her, a Dzortov's fellow villager said earlier. According to his story, the young man failed to perceive the seriousness of the warnings from the girl's relatives and abducted her again. She was then returned home again. Dzortov was shot dead; and no one has seen the girl since. According to her relatives, she left home for some unknown place.

According to Svetlana Anokhina, a journalist, who has been covering the problem of women's rights in Northern Caucasus for many years, the first thing that causes concern is the fate of the girl whom Ibragim Dzortov wanted to kidnap. "The girl is in some unknown place; the police don't seek to see her, because such a request needs a relatives' application. But of course there is none. Therefore, the girl is in mortal danger, if she's not dead already. They kill not only for escaping for marriage (and it was exactly an escape for marriage, not an abduction), but even for disobedience," Ms Anokhina told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Since the murder of the bride abductor was committed defiantly, there is "a 100 percent probability" of a blood feud, she has added.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 27, 2022 at 06:13 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.