Poso PAN chairman detained in arms case
Ruslan Sangadji, Palu
National Mandate Party (PAN) Poso head Luky Lasahido was arrested by police after illegal firearms, bullets and other weapons were found at his house, police said on Thursday.
Luky, who was elected as a House of Representatives member for PAN in the April 5 legislative poll, is being detained at the Poso Police office.
"Because all these dangerous items have been found at his (Luky's) house and warehouse, the man in question is our suspect," Poso's Sintuwu Maroso Operation chief Sr. Comr. Abdi Dharma told The Jakarta Post.
Police said the find was part of a series of intense arms searches in houses around Poso after a series of renewed attacks last month in the area, blamed on unidentified gunmen.
On Wednesday, a 600-strong joint police and Military team searched Luky's home for weapons and discovered seven sacks of sulfur, 300 rounds of 5.56 millimeter ammunition made by national arms producer PT Pindad Indonesia, bomb chassis and several homemade firearms.
Also found were a samurai sword, several crossbows and two walkie-talkies.
Abdi said the 300 bullets were seized from a desk at the suspect's house in downtown Poso, while the sacks of sulfur, bomb chassis, sword and crossbows were found in his warehouse.
The door-to-door search carried out at between around 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. at Luky's house and neighbors shocked local residents.
Most police raids in Poso usually happened at about 9 a.m., giving locals time to conceal their weapons before security personnel arrived.
During the latest operations, the authorities also examined identity cards of local people to identify illegal residents, Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Sugianto said.
"The move is to ensure that residents from outside Poso are not protected by local residents," he said.
However, Agus said the security forces had yet to find illegal residents living in the houses of local people. "Despite this, we will continue to carry out ID card checks," he said.
In two separate attacks last month in Poso's Pesisir district, a church leader was shot dead and a women lecturer was seriously wounded.
The shootings sparked fears of a return to religious fighting between Christians and Muslims in the region. From 1999 to 2001, more than 2,000 people died in sectarian fighting and hundreds of thousands of others were forced to flee their homes.
The conflict largely died down after Muslim and Christian leaders signed a government-brokered peace accord in December 2001.
However, around 5,000 people are still living at refugee camps in Tentena, a mainly Christian area in North Pamona. They refuse to return home because they fear more violence. Some also still have no houses to go to after their homes were destroyed in the conflict.
Frets Abast, a member of the refugee task force in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu, said only about 4,150 of a total of 16,969 low-cost houses had yet to be built for the refugees. Each house costs Rp 5 million (US$574).