Five more killed in murder spree in Jember, NU reveals
Five more killed in murder spree in Jember, NU reveals
JAKARTA (JP): The largest Muslim organization Nadhlatul Ulama
has revealed that five more people accused of being practitioners
of black magic were murdered over the past two weeks in Jember,
East Java.
"It is so sad that .. .the killing of alleged black magicians
is not yet over ...," Reuters quoted Chairul Anam, who heads an
investigation into the violence for NU, as saying in Surabaya on
Thursday.
Chairul said a woman and her daughter, accused of being black
magicians, were killed on Sunday in Jember village by two
assailants wearing black "ninja"-style clothes. Three other
people were killed in separate attacks in nearby areas over the
past two weeks.
Police in Jember said the cases were "purely criminal" despite
the apparent link to murders of some 200 people suspected of
practicing black magic, mostly in East Java since the middle of
last year.
"We have investigated the cases and found no political motive
behind them," Maj. Oneng Subroto, deputy chief of the Jember
Police Precinct, told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Thursday.
He said revenge was behind the murder of the woman and her
daughter.
"A man called Tinarsum, who is still at large, recruited
Syahuddin, who has undergone police investigation, to kill the
two after his proposal to take the woman's daughter to be his
wife was rejected," Oneng said.
An official team probing a spate of murders of Muslim clerics
and alleged black magicians in December verified 182 deaths but
has shed no light on who was responsible.
Nahdlatul Ulama's fact-finding team in December put the figure
at 253, saying most of them were NU members.
The murder spree was followed by retaliatory murders of
several people suspected of being involved in the killings.
Police have said most of those murdered were innocent, and
several were even those with mental disorders.
The team's report said it was fairly certain the killings of
suspected black magicians had been organized.
The military has come in for heavy criticism for being unable
to stop the killings, which peaked in September. Several people
have been charged with the murders but no one has been convicted.
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