A

mid public scrutiny following the alleged involvement of local police personnel in the extortion of a group of Australian tourists earlier this year, newly inaugurated Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. Sugeng Priyanto has pledged to make the popular resort island a safer place for both local residents and tourists.

Speaking at a modest welcoming ceremony at the Bali Police'€™s headquarters in Denpasar, Sugeng said he would make the security of domestic and foreign tourists one of his priorities.

'€œWe will put the security of tourists and tourist sites across Bali as one of our priorities. [We] will safeguard the tourists and their activities here. We will protect them all,'€ he said.

Earlier this month, the Bali Police named 12 police personnel, including Kuta Police chief Comr. Ida Bagus Deddy Januartha, suspects in a case of extortion against a group of Australian tourists. The 12 are to appear before an ethics tribunal.

The extortion, which allegedly took place in February, began when Australian tourist Mark Ipaviz and his friends were holidaying in Bali, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on June 21.

On their last night on the resort island, they organized a private event at an upmarket Seminyak restaurant and hired a stripper for the party. After the stripper began her performance, security guards stormed in and allegedly used Tasers against the Australians, as well as beating them with guns and bottles.

After confiscating the men'€™s phones and calling the local police, the guards and the police transported the group to a police station.

The tourists were reportedly forced to stay overnight at the police station and threatened with 10-year prison sentences for indecency. They were reportedly forced to pay to secure their release.

Sugeng, who was inaugurated on Sept. 5 at the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, also emphasized that the police'€™s investigation into the extortion case was still ongoing.

'€œLet'€™s give a chance for the investigators [to work]. Principally, we will conduct an investigation according to existing rules,'€ said the 54-year-old police general, who served as the National Police'€™s international relations division head prior to his new posting in Bali.

Separately, the chairman of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Board'€™s (GIPI) Bali chapter, Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, said the new Bali Police chief must take real action to create a safer tourist atmosphere in Bali by, for example, imposing heavy sanctions on police personnel proven to have been involved in the recent extortion case.

'€œThis kind of extortion happens very often, but many tourists decide not to file a report as they do not believe that the police would take firm action. They, instead, choose to write about their experiences on social media, which might go viral and damage the image of the island,'€ Ngurah said.

The Bali tourist office revealed that 3.76 million foreign tourists visited the island in 2014, an increase of 14.94 percent as compared to 3.27 million tourists recorded in 2013.

Despite the island'€™s tourist potential, Bali law enforcers have once again been put under the spotlight after a Taiwanese tourist reported on Saturday that he had been blackmailed and robbed by immigration officers upon his arrival at Denpasar'€™s Ngurah Rai International Airport. The Denpasar Police have said they are investigating the case.