West Papua No.1 News Portal | Jubi
Manokwari, Jubi – Hundreds of Manokwari residents lined a route to the funeral of one of the victims who were stabbed to death while police acted fast and arrested the alleged perpetrator to defuse any sectarian tension.
The hundreds walked and rode motorcycles in a cortege from Manokwari General Hospital to the funeral house in Wosi subdistrict in Manokwari Barat in Manokwari, West Papua province.
Some in the cortege threw rocks and damaged some properties along the way.
The action had made some other residents worried so they stopped their activities, including traveling and trading, in the city’s center. The police also deployed their personnel to guard the city center.
The incident has sent fear of sectarian conflicts because the victims were native Papuans while the alleged perpetrator was a non-Papuan.
West Papua Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Adam Erwindi confirmed that hundreds of people lined the route to the funeral of the victim.
“The perpetrator has been arrested. Please don’t take the law into your own hands,” he said.
He said the perpetrator was a private company employee, aged 22, and a man who lived in Manokwari.
The victims were DLW, 40, a civil servant, and HBGS, 36, a private employee. Both were male who were residents of Jl. Pertanian in Wosi, Manokwari Barat.
“Our preliminary investigation revealed that the motive was because the perpetrator felt offended after he argued with the two victims in a dorm on Jl. Transito in Wosi subdistrict,” he said.
The police said they had yet to calculate the damage but he said the city center had returned to normal.
Manokwari Police chief Adj. Sr. Come. Dadang Kurniawan said he and his colleagues had been paying respect to the families of both victims.
“I’m at the funeral house,” he said on March 23, 2021 in the afternoon.
To prevent more tension, some public figures and representatives of Papuan customary communities had visited Manokwari Police to discuss what to do after the stabbing.
Reporter: Hans Kapisa
Editor: Edho Sinaga
