The Jakarta Post, January 07, 2006
Poso Police upgraded amid rampant terror
Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post/Palu
After a series of terror attacks that have rocked Poso regency, the National Police
plan to upgrade the Poso police precinct to the Poso Special Police Precinct.
With the upgrading of its status, the number of police officers assigned to Poso Police
Headquarters will be increased to 2,000 from a previous 1,200.
Poso Police personnel now command 1,200 police personnel, 600 of which are locally
recruited and another 600 officers from other regions currently stationed in Poso
regency.
With the appointment of Poso as a special police precinct, the 600 non-local troops
will be pulled out from Poso and will be replaced by a group of 1,400 police personnel
who will be permanently stationed in Poso regency, said deputy chief of Central
Sulawesi provincial police Sr. Comr. Soekirno.
"As Poso Police now have 600 locally recruited personnel, after the change of status,
it will have 1,400 more police personnel who will be pulled in from other provincial
police forces in East Nusa Tenggara, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East
Kalimantan," said Soekirno.
Of the 2,000 police personnel to be permanently stationed in Poso regency, 400 will
be Mobile Brigade paramilitary officers, while the rest will be intelligence officers,
police detectives and others.
The first batch of the 1,400 police personnel will arrive in Poso regency on Saturday,
said Soekirno without going into detail. Poso saw grisly incidents last year including
the beheading of three Christian girls and the shooting of two lecturers.
The police move was declared only a week after a bomb ripped through a Christian
market in Palu and killed seven people. Palu is some 300 kilometers away from Poso,
which was rocked by sectarian conflict in 2000 that killed some 2,000 people.
Another market bombing took place in May 2004, in the predominantly Christian town
of Tentena in the province. Twenty-one shoppers were killed. Central Sulawesi is one
of just a handful of provinces with a significant proportion of Christians.
All contents copyright © of The Jakarta Post.
|
