Police still investigating robbery case
JAKARTA (JP): Police are still searching for at least seven masked men who shot and killed one man and seriously injured another in a robbery Wednesday at the Kedaung village in Ciputat, Tangerang.
"Although all their identities are already in our hands, we're still in the process of locating their hideouts," City Police spokesman Lt. Col. Latief Rabar told reporters here yesterday.
As of yesterday, investigators from the Ciputat police precinct were still questioning the other members of the family, one of their neighbors and a resident of Cipete Utara in South Jakarta.
Latief said, "no substantial results have been obtained from the witnesses which could lead us to the prime motives of the robbery."
During the incident, the robbers, armed with two handguns in addition to other weapons, including machetes, gunned down Abdulchair, 30, and seriously injured his brother Ahmad Gozali, 28.
Gozali is still in critical condition at the Fatmawati hospital in South Jakarta with a bullet in his stomach while Abdulchair was buried on Wednesday afternoon.
Sources and relatives of the victims said that before moving to the Kedaung village three months ago, the family sold their 18-square-meter plot in Cipete Utara for Rp 200 million (US$93,200).
They strongly believe the robbers were after the money, thinking the family still had it.
A witness from Cipete Utara, whose name was withheld by the police, may shed some light on the issue.
According to Nurdin, 53, the father of the victims, he has never had any disputes with other parties except with someone who claimed to be the owner of the plot he had bought then sold in Cipete Utara.
"When I bought the land 22 years ago, some of its certificates were not complete. Perhaps, there's someone who intends to claim the plot again," the businessman told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
Commission
Nurdin also explained that he paid Rp 36 million to a broker as commission for the transaction.
The remaining Rp 164 million has been used by his family for the construction of four houses, including the one they live in, and the purchase of three motorcycles and a car for his children.
Nurdin and Mimik, 50, have four sons and three daughters.
The night of the crime, five of their children were staying with them at the house in Kedaung, the late Abdulchair, Ahmad Gozali, Neneng, 20, Aceng, 14, and the youngest, Nunung, 13.
Based on the witnesses' stories and on-the-scene investigation, police said that the gang came to the new two- story house, which has a high iron fence -- the only one in the kampong of the Serua Indah subdistrict, Kedaung -- at around 2:30 a.m. with no vehicles, indicating that the robbers might live nearby.
The robbers turned the electricity off before breaking the front window of the house.
When the robbers placed a sickle on Mimik's neck, she saw there were three, whose faces were covered with black scarves except for their eyes, inside the house.
Neighbors said that they saw about five others wearing black jackets with no masks patrolling outside and around the scene. (bsr/anr)