Jakarta – Indonesian police said on Thursday they were investigating a report that policemen pointed their guns at asylum seekers who wanted to get off an overcrowded boat that sank last week killing 350 people.

"We are still studying the information from the media. We have set up an intelligence team but we do not know the outcome yet," national police spokesman Saleh Saaf told Reuters.

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald quoted a survivor who said more than a dozen police were protecting people smugglers who organised the trip on the overcrowded and leaky boat for the mostly Iraqi immigrants. "When most of us saw the boat was too dangerous we wanted to get off and get our money back," the Herald quoted 25-year-old survivor Kareem Jabar from Iraq as saying. "Several police in smaller boats pointed their guns at us. The police were protecting the smugglers."

The report said many of the asylum seekers thought boarding the boat was too dangerous but an Egyptian smuggler smashed one over the head with the butt of a gun.

The boat was leaving from Indonesia's Sumatra and heading for Australia's remote Christmas Island, a popular landing target for thousands of asylum seekers who use Indonesia as a springboard every year. Only 44 survived last Friday's tragedy, one of Indonesia's worst maritime disasters.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda warned on Wednesday of a bigger wave of asylum seekers following US-led strikes on Afghanistan, launched this month in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed more than 5,000 people.

He said Jakarta would hold a meeting next month with Australia and other Asian countries on the region's refugee crisis but gave no date or more details on what the talks would seek to achieve.

Thousands attempt the treacherous journey from Indonesia every year. The immigrants usually reach Indonesia via Malaysia and wait for years to get on such rickety boats, paying around $1,000 a head to people-smuggling syndicates.

Underscoring the potential for further disaster, police in the West Timor town of Kupang have rounded up around 200 mostly Afghan asylum seekers whose boat ran aground at the weekend on the remote eastern Rote island. Police said they would soon hand over the stranded asylum seekers to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Jakarta for processing.

"Patrolling police found them stranded on the island's beach running out of food and fuel. We have secured the immigrants at the Kupang police school," Kupang police chief Williardi Wizar told Reuters by telephone. "The 200 of them are all healthy. So, we will send them to the IOM in Jakarta soon," he said.

Indonesia has no law which can directly punish the middlemen making huge profits from the trade.