Banda Aceh – At least seven bodies were found, one of them of a policeman, in the separatist-plagued Indonesian province of Aceh, police and residents said Monday.

The body of a man with gunshout wounds was found in Matangkuli sub-district in North Aceh on Monday, a local journalist said. The victim was identified as a 53-year-old rubber farmer who was allegedly arrested by Indonesian security forces on Saturday.

Villagers in the same area had already found another body, also with gunshot wounds, the previous day, the journalist said. Residents were quoted by the journalists as saying that both civilians were shot by security personnel during their sweep of the subdistrict to hunt for separatist rebels on Saturday.

In the neighbouring district of East Aceh, villagers in Titi Baro found the body of police Head Corporal Rahmat Iman Santoso on Sunday. The victim had a gunshot wound but also his throat slit.

East Aceh Police Chief Superintendent Abdullah Hayati said that Santoso had been shot and abducted by a group of five unidentified men from his home in Seuneubok Muku in the neighbouring sub-district of Peudawa on Friday.

Also in East Aceh the body of a man with both his hands and feet bound was found by fishermen in the waters of Ujong Perling in the sub-district of Biereuem Bayeun on Sunday, Hayati said.

The body of another man was found on the side of the road in Asam Betik in the East Aceh sub-district of Kejuruan Muda on Sunday, he said.

A civilian was shot dead late on Saturday during an attack on a police post in Simpang Ulim, East Aceh, Hayati said, adding that another civilian was also wounded by gunshots and was currently hospitalized in Lhokseumawe, the main town in the neighbouring district of North Aceh. The two victims were people who had happened to be near the police post when the attack took place. No policemen were injured in the incident.

In West Aceh, villagers in Suak Ulee in the Teunom sub-district, found the body of a man on Sunday, a staff of the district's chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross said.

The district parliament and the district office in Meulaboh, the main town in West Aceh, were also the target of bomb attacks late on Sunday evening but there was minimal damage and no casualties, residents there said. A homemade bomb thrown into the district parliament failed to explode and only damaged a glass window while another thrown into the district office only damaged a kitchen at the back of the building, they said.