T

he Indonesian Police Watch (IPW) has lambasted the National Police'€™s Densus 88 counterterrorism unit for wrongfully arresting two men suspected of having links to the most-wanted terror fugitive Santoso.

'€œThe case displays the weakness of the Densus 88 operation and the whole police intelligence. We cannot tolerate this. The House of Representatives and the National Commission on Human Rights [Komnas HAM] must summon the chiefs of the National Police and Densus 88,'€ IPW chairman Neta S. Pane said on Tuesday.

Members of Densus 88 arrested Sapari and Mugi Hartanto when they were escorting two visiting preachers, Rizal and Dayah, to a bus station in Tulungagung, East Java, on July 22.

According to police, Dayah brandished a revolver and shot at Densus 88 officers, prompting a gunfight between them. Dayah and Rizal were killed in the shoot-out, and Sapari and Mugi surrendered. Densus 88 confiscated explosives from the scene.

The police suspected that the four were involved in a series of terror-linked crimes in Poso, Central Sulawesi; Surakarta, Central Java; Medan, North Sumatra and Bali.

Following the shoot-out, the country'€™s second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, immediately launched an investigation after learning that Sapari and Mugi were both active members of their East Java chapter. The organization believed that the two were not involved in terrorism.

The Densus 88 squad released Sapari and Mugi on Sunday due to lack of evidence.

Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin deplored the wrongful arrests and called on the police to clear the names of the two individuals.

'€œMugi and Sapari are not terrorists. They are respected figures in Penjor village, Pagerwojo,
Tulungagung. Like any Muhammadiyah members would, they welcomed the two [Dayah and Rizal] when they preached and held Koran recitals in the village for three months,'€ Din said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Din also accused the National Police of issuing false statements on Densus 88'€™s arrest chronology.

'€œSome locals have confirmed that there was no gunfight during the arrest. Densus 88 members just gunned down the two men and fired bullets at our members'€™ legs,'€ he said.

National Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Agus Rianto argued that Densus 88 detained Sapari and Mugi because they were on the scene during the raid.

'€œWe had two names in our data, but there were four men at the scene. Thus, we brought in four of them. After seven days of detention, we had to release [Sapari and Mugi] because we had not gained strong evidence [of their involvement],'€ he said on Tuesday in Jakarta.

Agus, however, declined to confirm that the Densus 88 squad had made false arrests.

Police have been on high alert in the past weeks, following the appearance of Santoso in a YouTube video, in which he calls on his followers to keep fighting Densus 88, saying that the squad has slain, assaulted and jailed dozens of jihadists.

Santoso'€™s video threatens the safety of around 400,000 Indonesian police officers, particularly Densus 88 personnel.

In the past few years, terrorist cells in Indonesia have shifted their target from foreign interests to police officers, who they refer to as the '€œmore immediate enemy.'€