A word of praise is due to the Jakarta Police team that ended

A word of praise is due to the Jakarta Police team that ended
the drama of the abduction of Mohammad Hegel Mutthahari, 8, and
arrested the abductors on Friday.

It took the officers 10 days to find Hegel, but the boy was
rescued, safe and sound, and the abductors, Doni and Nurul, were
arrested while hiding in a room at Hotel Horison, Ancol, North
Jakarta, thanks to a pair of slippers bearing the hotel's logo
found at Nurul's house in Muara Baru, North Jakarta.

The abduction was allegedly masterminded by Nurul's husband,
Taher, and Nurul and Doni, who were found "accompanying" Hegel in
the hotel room, are now being interrogated by the police. Taher
is still at large.

The abductors initially demanded a Rp 4 billion ransom, but in
the end reduced the amount to Rp 400 million. As reported by the
media, Hegel's parents transferred Rp 25 million to the Bank
Central Asia (BCA) account of a certain Sayogo Hendro, which led
the police to the (alleged) abductors' address in Cisarua, West
Java. The two, however, had already moved to North Jakarta.

After a string of terrorist acts that have kept the police
more than busy, the arrest of Hegel's abductors obviously brings
a degree of kudos to the Jakarta Police. Tuesday's JW Marriott
Hotel bomb blast, coming not long in the wake of two previous
bombings -- one at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and the
other at the House of Representatives (DPR) complex -- must have
caused the police to contemplate and review their shortcomings
amid widespread public criticism.

Many have asserted that the blasts prove that the police have
been lax in maintaining security in public places, including
vital facilities such as the airport and DPR complex. While the
police have become busier by the day because of the bombing
incidents, we do hope that they will not loosen their vigilance
on crime, which now includes kidnappings. Thank God that one of
the abductions has been dealt with properly.

Hegel was one of six children kidnapped during July. Two of
them, a two-year-old toddler and an eight-year-old girl, were
found dead after apparently being sexually assaulted, while two
others have been released. The fate of the two other children is
still unknown. The two-year-old girl was abducted in Pademangan,
North Jakarta, while the eight-year-old was kidnapped in
Cipayung, East Jakarta. The other four children were abducted in
Cianjur, West Java. The ominous message to be learned from all of
this is that danger threatens children anywhere. Hegel's
abduction is believed to be related to the position of the boy's
father as a top executive in a company in the gold trade. The
motives for the abduction of the other five are still unclear.
However, police assume that the crimes have been committed by the
same group of mentally unstable people.

One of the alleged abductors, identified as Dani Saputra, was
arrested in the East Java provincial capital, Surabaya, while his
brother, Jeffrey Saputra, is still at large. No further
information on the results of the questioning of Dani is
available. What people know so far is that the police have yet to
find the group and the two other missing children.

The message conveyed by the bomb blasts and the abductions, as
far as Jakarta's citizenry is concerned, is clear: Nobody,
including children, is safe in the capital. We all have to face
the fact that nobody's security is guaranteed. The recent
abductions also teach us that we should not trust anyone,
especially when it comes to our children.

They, too, are now targets of potentially lethal acts of
terror.

We suggest that the police start to develop a new approach to
dealing with abduction and the better protection of our children.
Alarm bells are ringing for parents to be more alert, as anybody
could kidnap their children, anywhere, anytime. They must never
leave their small children unwatched, even for a second. Simply
depending on the police is not enough. Parents should establish a
kind of network to protect their children, at least in their own
residential areas or neighborhoods. In the end, who else can we
rely on to protect our children, if not their own parents?