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n NGO focusing on migrant worker issues has called on the government to immediately take charge of the legal proceedings pertaining to the alleged murder of an Indonesian maid whose body was found in Singapore on Tuesday.

MigrantCARE executive director Anis Hidayah said Wednesday that she had been told that the maid, 31-year-old Ruliawati, had been mutilated.

She said the Indonesian government should immediately inform Ruliawati’s family in her home town in Kendal, Central Java, about the death. Ruliawati was married and had a four-year-old son in Indonesia.

“The government is responsible for handling [Ruliawati’s] legal case and ensuring that her family knows about her death. The central government, as well as the regional administration, must give her family support,” Anis told The Jakarta Post.

She also urged the government to scrutinize the case beyond reports that a domestic problem with her boyfriend allegedly had led to her death.

“The government should also take a look at her working condition, whether her rights were met during her work and whether her employer treated her well,” she said, adding she was still waiting for the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore to provide the answers to those questions.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said the ministry had ordered its staff to inform the victim’s family about the death, but added that he was unsure as to whether the family had received the information.

He said he did not know if the victim had been mutilated.

“Sometimes the family of a victim doesn’t have a telephone to reach,” he told the Post.

He also said the Indonesian government would let the Singaporean police handle the investigation.

“The Indonesian Embassy in Singapore will closely monitor the investigation process. We are also prepared to facilitate the sending of the victim’s body home after the investigation is complete,” Michael said.

The Indonesian maid was found dead in one of eight water tanks atop a 15-story Housing Development Board block of flats in Woodlands, Singapore, on Monday morning.

The Straits Times reported that 27-year-old Bangladeshi maintenance worker Md Bepon Mostafa had been named a suspect in the murder of Ruliawati — who had been working for an employer on the sixth floor — between 7:10 a.m. and 9:54 a.m. The two were believed to have been in an intimate relationship.

Mostafa was remanded for investigation at the Singapore Central Police Division for a week, the Times reported. If convicted, he would face the death penalty.

The police were informed at about 10 a.m. on Tuesday that a body had been found in a 2-meter-deep water tank in the building, it reported.

The call is believed to have been placed by a colleague of the suspect — an employee of Sergent Services Pte. Ltd., which offers conservancy services.

She was found dressed in Bermudas and a T-shirt and appeared to have cuts on her back, it reported. The cause of death and the motive of the killing had not been determined.