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Three people slain in drive-by shooting in Aceh

Election violence?: A nurse treats Fakhrurrazi (right) at Zainal Abidin General Hospital in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Tuesday

Hotli Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post)
Banda Aceh
Wed, April 2, 2014

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Three people slain in drive-by shooting in Aceh Election violence?: A nurse treats Fakhrurrazi (right) at Zainal Abidin General Hospital in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Tuesday. (JP/Hotli Simanjuntak) (right) at Zainal Abidin General Hospital in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Tuesday. (JP/Hotli Simanjuntak)

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span class="inline inline-none">Election violence?: A nurse treats Fakhrurrazi (right) at Zainal Abidin General Hospital in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Tuesday. (JP/Hotli Simanjuntak)

Three people were killed as the minibus in which they were traveling, which had the image of a Aceh Party legislative candidate on its side, was riddled with bullets in Geulanggang village, Teungoh, Bireun, Aceh, on Monday night.

The victims, one of them a one-and-a-half-year-old child, were escorting a family member to a clinic for medical treatment.

The three deceased have been identified as Juwaini, 29, Azirawati, 22, and the child, Anwar.

Another passenger, Fakhrurrazi, 40, sustained serious injuries from a bullet wound to his back.

According to Samsuar, a family member who was not in the minibus, as many as 11 members of the family had intended to travel with a relative to a hospital in Bireun city.

Samsuar confirmed the car had been borrowed from an Aceh Party legislative candidate named
Aswadana.

'€œThe assailant shot the rear of the minibus, so passengers sitting at the back of the vehicle bore the brunt of the bullets,'€ said Samsuar.

The driver instinctively sped away from the scene and the gun-wielding attacker and upon arrival in Bireun asked local residents for help.

'€œWe are absolutely not associated with any party, none of our relatives are legislative candidates, or supporters of a particular party. We are just ordinary people,'€ said Samsuar.

Samsuar emphasized that they had only borrowed the minibus from the Aceh Party as a relative needed to go to hospital for treatment. The family had previously used the same car on three separate occasions for the same purpose.

The police are currently conducting an investigation into the incident. Ten eyewitnesses, six of them passengers of the minibus and four residents who were at the scene of the crime, have been questioned.

'€œWe found eight shells of a caliber 7.62 mm gun at the crime scene, which is usually the ammunition for an AK-47 assault rifle,'€ said Adj. Sr. Comr. Muhammad Ali Khadafi.

Following the incident, police personnel were deployed to the crime scene to scour the area. However, no motive has been determined nor any concrete connection made to the upcoming election.

Violence in the run up to the election continues to escalate in Aceh. The attacks have included torture, vandalism and shootings.

Based on data derived from the Aceh chapter of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), five shooting incidents have been reported ahead of the election this year.

In two of the incidents, two party sympathizers and a legislative candidate from a local Aceh National Party (PNA) were shot and killed, as well as three other residents who were not associated with any of the parties.

Observers viewed the fatal shootings to be the result of rivalry between the Aceh Party, which currently dominate the Aceh Council and administration, and the splintered PNA, which is led by former governor Irwandi Yusuf.

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