Police face backlog of cases despite progress
JAKARTA (JP): Despite recent praise from the public for their excellent work in solving challenging crimes, the City Police Force is facing a heavy backlog of criminal cases.
The solving of most of the cases, which once made newspaper headlines, has been pending for more than one year.
Among the crimes still being investigated are the killing of 23-year-old servant Djasman in September, 1993, the brutal murder of six members of the Hutagalung family in Bekasi and the mysterious death of a young businessman at the residence of actress Ria Irawan in January last year.
Others include the murder of six-year-old Levina Dwisy, who was found dead near her bicycle in the Ancol area of North Jakarta in March of last year. The police investigations to determine the mastermind of the killing of entertainment businessman Nyo Beng Seng on April 15 last year in North Jakarta, and the killing of ex-convict Johny Sembiring, who was a noted figure in the city's debt collector circles, in August last year have yet to be finished.
This year alone, police have had a hard time probing a number of cases, such as the mysterious killing of a physician whose body was found in a bathroom at a supermarket in Kedoya, West Jakarta, in May, the missing of an African charged with heroin trafficking from the City Police Headquarters cell early this month and the death of a 40-year-old housewife in a cell of the Pulogadung police sub-precinct in East Jakarta early last week.
It is still unknown whether the city detectives are still working on the cases, but public expect the city police, under the leadership of their new chief, Maj. Gen. Dibyo Widodo, to continue to investigated the challenging crimes.
Since being appointed Greater Jakarta police chief nine months ago, Dibyo and his investigators have recorded remarkable success in solving major crimes through scientific methods in just a matter of days.
The recent success of his team in solving the case of a brutal killing of a mother and her three young children has earned appreciation from the public.
Dibyo's personnel in Bekasi recently received a rare award from President Soeharto for their recent success in identifying and apprehending the suspects in a local gang rape.
However, the public wonder whether Dibyo will be able to solve the old cases, which might have involved influential people.
National Police Chief Gen. Banurusman Astrosemitro once pledged to continue the intensive investigations into the unsolved cases.
"We pledge to keep on hunting all the suspects to settle the debt that we owe," the four-star general said.
And, Banurusman added, "we never intend to just do nothing, nor to close any of the cases."
The police investigation into the killing of servant Djasman has yet to be solved although detectives earlier named a number of executives of the powerful Pemuda Pancasila youth organization as suspects. Some of that group's executives were detained for several days but were later released.
In tracking down the suspect in the killing of Herbin Hutagalung's wife, sister and his four children, police claim that the suspect is currently working somewhere in Malaysia.
Similar to the other unsolved cases, the murder of Levina, second of three children of an ethnic Chinese bicycle shop owner, on March 25, 1994, in North Jakarta also remains a mystery.
Local police detectives suspect the girl was murdered by hired killers paid by a lover of the girl's father.
In the case of Beng Seng's killing, police are still in the dark as to who masterminded the crime. Earlier, they named the victim's competitor, who is staying in Singapore, as the suspect, but said they were unable to question him due to the absence of an extradition treaty between Jakarta and Singapore.
The progress of the investigations into the other cases remains unclear, causing the widespread assumption among the public that the cases have been temporarily closed by the city police. (bsr)