BY : TELLY NATHALIA
AUGUST 13, 2019
Jakarta. The police have confirmed the death of a police investigator in Papua after he was taken hostage by an armed group on Monday.
A police spokesman said on Tuesday that First Brigadier Hedar was kidnapped by an armed criminal group called Lekagak Telenggen and then killed not long after. Â
Hedar and a colleague were looking for information on the armed group in Usir, a village in Puncak Jaya, when he was taken.
His body was found on the same day. Police did not say where Hedar's body was discovered.
"The armed group often threatens local residents, blackmailing them, stealing their food, beating them up and raping the women. Our officers were trying to find out the whereabouts of the group [when Hedar was kidnapped and then killed]," police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.
The Puncak Jaya police chief and the district head were negotiating with the Lekagak Telenggen to release Hedar when his body was found.
His remains will be sent to his hometown of Makassar in South Sulawesi on Tuesday, Dedi said. The late police detective was given a posthumous promotion to full brigadier since he died while he was on duty.
According to Dedi, the Lekagak Telenggen group has been involved in several attacks and killings in Papua, including a gun attack on construction workers in 2016 in which five people died and the shooting down of a Susi Air flight in Puncak Jaya in 2014.