Jakarta – Mobs who have taken the law into their own hands in the face of weak law enforcement in and around the Indonesian capital have killed 40 people this year, police disclosed yesterday.

"Increasing mob justice indicates a slide in the respect for the law," the Antara national news agency quoted Jakarta police chief Major General Nurfaizi as saying.

He told a parliamentary hearing here that since January, there have been 62 cases in Jakarta and surrounding areas where mobs dealt out summary justice to criminals or suspected criminals they had caught. Forty of those caught were killed, often beaten or burnt to death, while 32 others had been seriously injured, he said.

Since the fall of former president Suharto in 1998, Indonesian security forces, including the police, have been accused of past human rights violations and random violence, prompting extreme caution in their actions. The police are also seriously undermanned, with some 200,000 men for a population of more than 210 million.

President Abdurrahman Wahid said earlier yesterday he had asked the national police chief to draw up plans to swell their ranks. "To create a sense of security in the society ... the President has ordered the national police chief to formulate a plan for the addition of personnel and equipment in the framework of enforcing domestic security," according to a written summary of a Cabinet meeting seen here yesterday.

The President said the government will try to seek the necessary funding to cover the expansion and the new equipment, adding that most likely the funds would come from bilateral cooperation. However, no figure has been mentioned.

Until the police are entirely capable of assuring security at home, "the President has asked the Indonesian armed forces to help the national police in creating a sense of security in the society," the statement said.

The armed forces will contribute both personnel and equipment to that effort, he said, adding that soldiers assigned to help the national police will be under police command.

Disclosure of the scale of mob violence came as witnesses in Ambon said that at least 15 people were wounded yesterday when security forces opened fire to disperse an unruly mob in the latest outburst of sectarian unrest in the Maluku islands.