`I'd like to raise their child as mine'
`I'd like to raise their child as mine'
Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Titin, 42, mother of Dwi Santia -- who was brutally raped and killed by a serial kidnapping gang -- demanded capital punishment for all the suspects in the case, but asked the police if she could legally adopt one of the suspect's children.
"The rest of the family are no doubt savages but their child is innocent. I want to adopt the child as an exchange for my daughter," Titin told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The gang -- comprising of Tonny Buntung, his wife Maryati, his son Jefri Saputra and Jefry's wife Imas -- were arrested in Cilacap, Central Jakarta, on Friday.
Both Jefry and Tonny were reportedly shot while trying to escape arrest. Jefry died at the hospital while Tonny received medical treatment for his wounds.
Another member of the gang, Dani Saputra, was arrested in August in Surabaya, East Java.
Titin said that she would take good care of the child -- the two-year-old son of Jefry and Imas -- and hoped that it could fill the empty void in her heart since her little Dwi was found dead in a cardboard box in Karawang, West Java, in July.
After Dwi's death, Titin was despondent and most of the time seemed to be lost in a world of silence. She often faints when someone broaches the topic. However, quite contrary to her condition in the last three months, she was overwhelmed with gratefulness and joy that her daughter's killers were finally arrested.
"Thank you, Allah. May they all get the divine judgment they deserve," she exclaimed.
However, she was not entirely satisfied until she got to see the alleged perpetrators with her own eyes.
"I felt like throwing acid in their faces. How could they do such a terrible thing to my daughter?" she said.
Dwi was kidnapped in July for a ransom of Rp 5 million (US$588). She was brutally raped, sodomized and killed after the parents transferred Rp 4.3 million to the kidnappers' bank account.
Dwi's father, Wawan, was escorted by police to Cilacap to identify Jefry, the suspect who kidnapped Dwi.
Earlier, the gang also kidnapped Nabila in the Pademangan area, North Jakarta. She was similarly brutalized be they murdered her.
Tonny, who has lost the use of his hands, is suspected as the mastermind of the kidnapping and murder cases.
During the arrest on Friday, police managed to save a six-year-old named Riska, who had been in captivity for 70 days, along with four-year-old Budi Bahari Sanjaya. Riska was kidnapped in Cianjur as the gang fled from Jakarta while Budi was kidnapped later after the gang was hiding in Cilacap.