Police officers attacked

MEDAN, North Sumatra: One police officer was shot and another badly beaten in two separate incidents in North Sumatra on Wednesday night.

"The condition of Brigadier Haris Nasution is critical. He was shot in the back and the bullet pierced his body," said Medan Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Bagus Kurniawan on Thursday.

He said an unidentified man on a motorcycle shot Haris late on Wednesday night in the North Sumatra capital.

Several hours earlier, First Insp. N. Perangin-angin was beaten by five people as he checked cars in the North Sumatra town of Binjai.

The incidents come three days after robbers killed a security guard and a bank driver at a Bank Lippo branch in Medan. A third victim, security guard Juni Purba, died on Thursday in the hospital, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the head. -- JP