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coalition of NGOs has demanded the police conduct an objective and transparent investigation into last week’s attack on the Ciracas Police headquarters in East Jakarta and a privately owned house.

The NGOs, grouped under the Civil Coalition for Security Reforms, lambasted the Jakarta Police for not revealing the identities of the suspects involved in the ransacking of the police station and a house that belonged to the parents of a man accused of assaulting Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel.

“The investigation into the mob attack must be conducted fully by the police. If there is enough evidence, the perpetrators must be taken to court without prejudice,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said in a press conference on Monday.

The legal process following the attack must be pursued for the sake of equality, he said referring to the alleged involvement of members of the TNI.

Usman claimed the military appeared to have “impunity as a result of structural and psychological barriers”, as an example of which was the speedy arrest of the suspects who allegedly beat up the TNI personnel in contrast to the slow pace of the investigation into the mob attack.

Amnesty is included in the coalition along with Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta), the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), Imparsial, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), Elsam, Setara Institute, Human Rights Watch Group (HRWG) and others.

A mob of dozens ransacked and set fire to parts of the Ciracas Police headquarters last week, while also injuring several police officers on duty.

The incident also took place almost concurrently with an attack on a house belonging to the parents of Iwan Hutapea, who has been named as a suspect in the assault case against two TNI personnel.

Iwan is one of the five suspects named by the Jakarta Police for allegedly assaulting two TNI members in Ciracas. However, police have not yet given any updates on the attack on its own police premises claiming that the investigation was still ongoing.

LBH Jakarta director Arif Maulana said the coalition strongly suspected that the attack on the police station was related to the previous assault, which took place in a parking lot. The suspects were parking attendants managing the space who had quarreled with and later allegedly attacked Capt. Komaruddin of the Navy and First Private Rivo Nanda, a member of the Presidential Security Detail (Paspampres).

“If the [police station attack] case is not resolved, it could be a serious blow to law enforcement in Indonesia,” he said.

Imparsial director Al Araf also urged the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to step in to find out if any human rights were violated.

Jakarta Military Command spokesman Lt. Col. Kristomei Sianturi said the TNI had started an internal probe into the alleged involvement of its personnel.

“We have instructed the military command to check all the relevant documentation, including footage and photos that we have received. If we find out that any of our personnel were involved with this, we will follow the procedures based on the law,” Kristomei told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Jakarta Social Affairs Agency would provide trauma healing for the family members of Iwan following the attack in which their house was ransacked, agency official Susan Budi Susilowati said as reported by tempo.co. (mai)