T

he Muara Enim Police in South Sumatra have defended personnel involved in a recent shooting that wounded two Indonesian Army (TNI) personnel, arguing that their actions were part of the force'€™s ongoing investigation into a criminal case.

Muara Enim Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Nuryanto said the incident, which took place on Friday evening in the neighboring Lubuklinggau municipality, occurred when the police were investigating the kidnapping of a local resident.

'€œOur personnel were carrying out their duties by following up on a report about the kidnapping of a resident from Pagar Dewa subdistrict in the Benakat district,'€ Nuryanto said, as quoted by tribunnews.com on Sunday.

'€œOur personnel were chasing the alleged kidnappers to Lubuklinggau. We didn'€™t know that [the alleged perpetrators] were TNI personnel. We were just carrying out our duties as usual.'€

Gunfire broke out between police and military personnel at 11 p.m. local time on Friday in Lubuklinggau, a city located about 300 kilometers west of the South Sumatran provincial capital of Palembang. Two soldiers were left injured with gunshot wounds.

The injured soldiers, identified as Capt. Edy Sutrisno and Second Sgt. Deden, are members of III/Siliwangi Military Command (Kodam), which oversees the Banten and West Java provinces. Both victims, as of the weekend, were undergoing treatment at Siti Aisyah General Hospital (RSUD) in Lubuklinggau.

Kodam III/Siliwangi spokesman Col. Robertson confirmed that Edy and Deden were members of the Kodam'€™s intelligence detachment. The two soldiers, he said, had been in South Sumatra, which is under the jurisdiction of Kodam II/Sriwijaya, for official duty at the time of the incident.

'€œThey were on official duty. There was something that they were looking into,'€ he said, without elaborating on the soldiers'€™ assignment.

Robertson also said that he considered the shooting incident to have been a misunderstanding.

Tribunnews.com reported that prior to the incident a group of Muara Enim Police personnel were hunting down five people who had allegedly kidnapped 41-year-old Hedianto, a local businessman who was abducted from his house on Tuesday.

The day after he was abducted, Hedianto called his wife, saying that he had been taken to Lubuklinggau and asking her to transfer Rp 10 million (US$734) to his kidnappers. Hedianto'€™s family immediately reported the kidnapping to the police.

Muara Enim Police later managed to track down the position of an SUV that allegedly transported Hedianto and his kidnappers to Jl. Jenderal Ahmad Yani, Lubuklinggau, and deployed personnel to the spot.

After confirming that Hedianto was in the car, the personnel quickly surrounded and ambushed it.

During the ambush, some people hurriedly exited the car, shouting that they were military personnel. Despite that, however, the shoot-out still took place.

Afterwards, the police rushed the injured soldiers to the RSUD for emergency treatment.