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AKARTA: National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti has said that it is important for the police force to join the government-sanctioned human rights committee tasked to probe past rights abuses.

Badrodin said on Friday that the police must be involved in the committee because many officers had been accused of gross rights violations in the past, especially in the Semanggi I and II student shooting incidents in 1998.

'€œOf course we have to be involved [in the committee] because we have been accused in the Semanggi I and II incidents. However, the National Commission on Human Rights [Komnas HAM] failed to categorize these acts as gross human rights violations without the attorney general'€™s approval,'€ he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.

Badrodin said that with the help of investigators from the police force and the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), past rights abuses could finally be resolved.

For the past two months, the Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo administration has discussed the possibility of establishing a truth-finding committee to investigate seven major incidents of rights abuses and set up a reconciliation team for victims, their families and the country.

Attorney General M. Prasetyo announced that a 15-member committee would soon be proposed to Jokowi and would be made up of Komnas HAM members, AGO prosecutors, retired police and military personnel, civil society groups and families of the victims.