Harsh punishment sought for cruel killers

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Ulemas Council Chairman K.H. Hasan Basri has condemned the sadistic killing of a woman and her three children in East Jakarta, and said he hoped that the killer would receive a harsh punishment.

Hasan Basri said the killing of Eli Kusnaeni, 31, and her three children, Gilang, 8, Citra, 4, and Rizky, 2, was a heresy committed by brutal people.

Branding the killers as sadistic and as animals, Hasan Basri told reporters, "the criminals deserve a harsh sentence for that."

The four victims were found badly mutilated in their house in Ciracas, East Jakarta, on Monday.

Those who are lacking spiritual education can easily commit such criminals acts, he said.

He said sadistic crime has become a social trend in the city. "Such a murder is only one case."

"God has given us the hearts to feel, the eyes to see and the ears to hear, but why don't we use them properly?" Hasan asked.

He said that TV stations must stop airing films filled with excessive violence. He said such films have directly or indirectly influenced people to commit criminal acts.

Mentality

Zakiah Daradjat, a professor of psychology at the Jakarta State Islamic Institute, said that the people who committed the murder were mentally unbalanced.

She said that the people failed to cope with their life burdens. As a result, their feelings of hatred had grown. The environment and surroundings had intensified their hatred of other people. "Violent films may be the part of bad surroundings," she said.

People, especially those who have less religious education, will imitate the actions of the actors and take the actors to be heroes, she said.

Zakiah said she shared the opinion that the criminals involved must receive severe punishment.

Romulus Sihombing, a councilor with the City Council's Commission A, in charge of security, said that the law enforcers must do their best to solve the murder case and arrest the suspects soon.

"The security officers should professionally take the case as a challenge," he said, adding that the authority must guarantee that such cases will not occur in the future.

He suggested that social solidarity in the city community be enlivened to prevent criminal acts. He said Jakartans must not too individualistic. People in a community should know each other to enable them to identify strangers easily, he said.

He said that the community security systems must be activated because they have been proven effective in preventing neighborhood crimes.

He said that crime has been caused by, among other things, the unbalanced situation in society.

"Efforts to maintain public order have frequently hurt people," he said, citing demolitions and the removal of street vendors as examples.

He said that harsh punishment may deter people from committing the criminal acts.(32)