100 members of Palu sect surrender to police

100 members of Palu sect surrender to police

Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post, Palu

About 100 followers of a shadowy sect surrendered to police on
Thursday as heavily armed officers combed their neighborhoods in
a mountainous Palu area in search of the sect leader, called
Mahdi.

The followers, including a woman believed to be the sect
leader's wife, went on Thursday to Central Sulawesi Police
Headquarters in Palu city. They began to trickle into the
headquarters at 11 a.m with the last batch arriving at 4 p.m.,
among them many mothers and children. The people claimed they
were seeking protection from police as there had been a number of
strange things happening recently within the sect.

Holimin, who joined the sect a few months ago, said the
leader, Mahdi, had become much more authoritarian recently.
Holimin recounted that he had brought his sick wife to Mahdi who
was believed to be a shaman, but instead of getting well, his
wife's health deteriorated and she eventually died. Holimin
wanted to bury his wife, but Mahdi prevented him from doing so,
saying he could bring her back to life. He was ordered to lay
down his wife's body in a hut, promising Holimin that he would
bring the woman back to life. Holimin heeded Mahdi's order as he
feared the consequences if he refused.

But as Holimin was watching over his wife's body in Salena
hamlet on Tuesday, a clash between police and members of the sect
broke out. The clash stirred fear among residents of the area,
including Holimin, and they chose to hide as police combed
villages in search of Mahdi and his key followers. When the clash
subsided, residents flocked to Palu police headquarters for
protection, said Holimin, as quoted by detik.com news portal.

The deadly clash occurred after 16 police officers went to the
mountainous Gawalise area near Palu to detain Mahdi for allegedly
spreading heretical Islamic beliefs. The attempt to arrest the
leader met stiff resistance from his followers, leading into the
deaths of three officers and two sect members.

Several officers were reportedly held hostage by sect members,
prompting Central Sulawesi Police to resort to a massive
operation to free their colleagues. The search efforts that
started Wednesday employed over 300 heavily armed police
personnel and a helicopter.

The intensive search bore fruit, with the three police
officers being found on Thursday in forest area near Salena
hamlet where the sect was centered. Two of the officers, Chief
Brig. Sugeng and First Brig. Rizal, were found near a ravine with
severe injuries, while Deputy First Lt. Naco Parajaman was
spotted by locals walking through a forest area near Kalora
subdistrict. He had walked through the jungle for a day to escape
the sect. "They have been taken to a Palu hospital for medical
treatment," said police, quoted by Antara news agency.

Separately, a sociologist has blamed the government for the
spread of Mahdi beliefs among the people of the Kaili tribe
living in the remote Gawalise mountain area. Mahdi beliefs center
on the rejection of Islam and Christianity, and people are
considered pure after they had refrained from practicing the
tenants of these religions.

Christian Tindjabate said the government should have
approached, paid more attention to, and conducted more dialog
with the Kaili tribe in order to prevent them from becoming
exclusivist. "The government should have encouraged them to
interact with outside people, but it failed to do that, leading
to chaos," Tindjabate, a sociologist from Tadulako University,
told The Jakarta Post.