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Two shot in armed heist, robbers make off with Rp 95m
Four armed robbers in Labuhan Batu regency in North Sumatra made off with Rp 95 million (US$10,555) in cash, just a week after a fatal bank robbery in the provincial capital Medan
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our armed robbers in Labuhan Batu regency in North Sumatra made off with Rp 95 million (US$10,555) in cash, just a week after a fatal bank robbery in the provincial capital Medan.
The two victims, both rubber entrepreneurs, were shot in the legs by the robbers. They are being treated at Rantau Prapat Hospital.
North Sumatra Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Baharuddin Djafar said Thursday that police were investigating this latest armed robbery in Labuhan Batu.
He said the Labuhan Batu robbery was not perpetrated by the same group that robbed a branch of the CIMB Niaga bank in Medan last Wednesday, in which a police officer was killed and two security guards injured.
Medan Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) deputy director Muslim Muis urged police to immediately investigate the string of armed robberies in the province.
He said that no one had been arrested a week after the bank heist, raising doubts about the police efforts to address such crimes.
“The police need to get their act together. The bank robbery case is just one week old and we have another robbery in Labuhan Batu,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
He claimed there were many unsolved armed robberies in the province.
“In our latest report in June, we found that there were at least three armed robberies every month [in North Sumatra], but unfortunately, the police rarely solve the cases,” Muslim said.
The situation, he said, raised questions as to why the police treated armed robbery and terrorism differently.
“When it comes to terrorism, the police work fast to quickly arrest terrorist suspects. This is very different from the way they handle armed robbery cases,” Muslim said.
Baharuddin acknowledged that no significant progress had been made in the bank heist investigation. ”We’re still on the trail of those suspected to be involved in the robbery,” he said.
On Thursday, he also confirmed that a recently arrested man was not one of the bank robbers.
In West Java, a robbery turned ugly Thursday midnight when two teenagers robbed and killed three people in Cimahi, 12 kilometers west of the provincial capital Bandung.
The 18-year-olds, Syarif Hidayat and Toni Restawijaya, robbed a storekeeper and his family, killing three — the storekeeper Karnadi Unang, his wife Ham Ay Keng and the couple’s son, Rudi Unang.
The victims tried to fight the robbers, who used to work for the family, but failed.
One of the victims died at the scene and the other two died en route to the hospital.
Syarif and Toni were arrested close to the crime scene after police received a report from Karnadi’s brother, Akiong, who was informed by the family’s domestic servant, Umi.
Syarif told police he was desperate and broke.
He said the two of them hated the Karnadi family as they regularly reprimanded the boys at work. Syarif had resigned and Tony was dismissed for poor punctuality.
“We were scolded even if we were only two minutes late. I hated them and needed money,” Syarif told Cimahi Police.
Cimahi Police chief detective Adj. Comr. Ahmad Zubair said police had deployed 50 officers to arrest the two, who face the death penalty for the murders and robbery.
He added that police had confiscated a laptop computer, cell phones, cash and electronic equipment from the robbers. “We acted quickly thanks to the immediate report [we received],” he said.
The victims tried to fight the robbers, who used to work for the family, but failed.
