Security forces move against looting in Aceh

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Abandoned buildings in Aceh, whose owners have either died or fled to other areas, have become too much of a temptation for hungry, poor refugees, some of whom have been caught looting.

Mohammad Zulfikar, a commander from Company Sat III Detachment C in Aceh, said that the military and the police were working together to protect abandoned buildings from looting, as reported by Antara.

Apart from protecting these vacant buildings, the authorities also must protect the residential housing complexes and shopping malls that are still standing, in whole or in part.

"Our duty right now is to guard markets and valuable shops that are still left in Aceh, in addition to helping out with the evacuation process," he said.

He explained that a few days ago, the police arrested a person for looting at an empty house, which had been abandoned by its owner.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Paiman said that he also had received similar reports of looting incident at a jewelry shop in Banda Aceh.

Paiman quickly added that the police had already detained a person for that and everything was now under control.

"There have been no other looting reports so far," Paiman told The Jakarta Post.

However, he admitted that there was a lack of police personnel in Aceh after the tsunami swept through most of the police stations and killed many police officers.

"Before the disaster, we had around 14,000 officers there, but many have disappeared and we don't know whether they're alive and safe or not," Paiman said.

In order to bolster the number of security personnel in Aceh, the police transferred around 150 officers from North Sumatra and added 200 more from Jakarta.

Another 740 personnel have been deployed from many provincial police precincts across Indonesia to add to the 500 newly graduated officers that have been sent to Aceh.

"We're increasing our numbers in order to prevent more looting or other criminal activity," Paiman said.

He added that the National Police headquarters also sent around 30 police cars.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said that the police would continue to add to the number of police officers until they had a similar number as they had before Dec. 26.

"We will send more mobile brigade units (police paramilitary force) to Aceh until the number reaches 14,000 again. They will join the existing 7,600 personnel in Aceh," Da'i said as quoted by www.detik.com.