Village elders and Islamic clerics in the Russian republic of Ingushetia agreed to hike unofficial fines for bride kidnapping in an effort to stop the custom that led to a bloody shootout last month. Stealing a woman to take her as wife will now cost the groom $6,100, up from $305, participants decreed at the ongoing Islamic Conference in the capital of the republic, Magas. Groom's helpers, local elders who endorse the kidnapping and the owner of the house that hosts the kidnapped woman would pay up to $3,050 each, a spokesman for the republican government said Saturday.
The fines are not official, but decisions of clerics and elders carry much weight in the traditionalistic southern republic.
The majority of bride kidnappings in the North Caucasus are believed to be mock incidents. However, three people, including a pregnant bystander, were killed in a street fight between two Ingush clans that followed a bride kidnapping in October.
The neighboring Chechnya set up a fine of $30,500 for bride kidnapping in 2010, but Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov later admitted it hasn't stopped the custom.