E. Java Police won't release detained hardliners
E. Java Police won't release detained hardliners
Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
East Java Provincial Police on Tuesday rejected the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI)'s request for the release of 102 hardliners being detained for a violent raid on gambling dens in Ngawi.
East Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Sutanto said the members of the militant Laskar Jihad group cannot be released right now because investigations are still underway.
"It's impossible to accept the (MUI's) request," he said, "so the probe will continue."
Last Saturday, MUI Secretary General Din Syamsuddin visited the detainees at police cells in the East Java capital of Surabaya, and appealed to the police to release them soon, or at least suspend their probe until after Idul Fitri holidays.
The country's top Islamic authority had earlier wrote to the National Police headquarters to express the same demand.
Sutanto said he has prohibited police investigators from taking leave during Idul Fitri in an effort to speed up the inquiry.
The extremists, mostly coming from the Central Java cities of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, later reportedly kidnapped Yuwono Sustyo, who chaired the Ngawi chapter of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).
Secretary of East Java's police chief detective Adj. Com. Didik Totok Prijandono said on Tuesday that a special team has been assigned to trace the whereabouts of Yuwono, who was among those at one of the raided gambling dens.
Yuwono was rumored to have been killed, since he was kidnapped from his house. However, Didik said the police were verifying the report.
In Yogyakarta, Laskar Jihad Commander Ja'far Umar Tholib on Monday night denied the accusations that his group was behind Yuwono's abduction. "We are not a group of kidnappers or troublemakers," he said.
Ja'far's denial contradicted an earlier statement by his group's lawyer, M. Mahendradatta, that his clients had handed over Yuwono to police.
"Mahendradatta's statement was issued when the situation was still uncertain," Ja'far said. "He thought that Yuwono Susatyo was one of the six gamblers we handed over to the police on Nov. 29."
Meanwhile, former president Abdurrahman Wahid criticized the police on Monday for taking what he called discriminatory action by arresting only members of the Laskar Jihad over the Ngawi incident.
The police should have also captured all parties involved in the riot, including PDI Perjuangan supporters who were seen at gambling centers, he added.