'Kidnappings reflect growing violence'

JAKARTA (JP): Two recent, highly publicized kidnappings in Indonesia show an increasing societal tendency to settle differences through violence, a criminologist said,

Yohanes Sutoyo of the University of Indonesia said that in the case of a girl abducted in Jakarta earlier this month, the kidnapper was trusted by the victim yet he resorted to violent means to fulfill his needs, the Antara news agency reported.

Yohanes also argued that the tendency to resort to violence is also a reflection of poor law enforcement in the country.

In the latest abduction case, police managed to free 18-year old Erna Erliana on Sunday night at a hotel in Bandung, West Java. The daughter of a wealthy Bandung businessman had been held captive since Friday and her abductors had asked for Rp 94 million in ransom money from her father, H. Sofyan.

Unlike the abduction case in Jakarta in which the lone captor was shot dead by police and the victim injured, the Bandung case ended with the arrest of five people, including a woman, who were believed to have been involved in the abduction.

Erna was unharmed.

According to the police, Erna played a pivotal role in her own escape. As she was being held in her hotel room, she talked her way out by telling one of her captors about the need for him to make an honest living and that her father would be willing to offer him a job.

Having convinced her captor, she was allowed to make a phone call to her father. Quietly, she then tipped him off as to where she was staying. (pet/emb)