Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The Indonesian military and police may be forced to re-count and re-register their standard weapons after revelations that many such arms are being used in an increasing number of armed robberies in major cities.

Several non-government organisations (NGOs) are calling on Parliament to instruct the two security institutions to conduct an audit on weapons to see how many of them have been misused in criminal acts.

Last week alone, the police recorded six armed robberies in the Greater Jakarta area, although no casualties were reported.

The police have admitted that in some of these incidents, there were indications that the weapons used were similar to those issued to security personnel.

And in some previous cases, members of the police corps or the Indonesian Defence Force (TNI) have been arrested in connection with various crimes.

In addition, some of the grenades and explosive materials found in previous terror attacks appeared to have also come from the security forces' supplies.

The secretary-general of the NGO Police Watch, Mr Adnan Pandupradja, told The Straits Times: "Based on the ballistic or forensic tests of the crimes, we suspect that some weapons, grenades and explosive materials have been either sold off by individual officers, or smuggled out of the military's or police's logistics warehouses." He said weapons supervision was lax in both the military and the police, especially in conflict-ridden areas of the country. "In East Timor, Aceh, Papua and Maluku, a soldier is issued two to three weapons each. Because of poor control, these weapons are more susceptible to being sold off or misused."

But the police played down these contentions. "Yes, there have been incidents in which our standard weapons were used in robberies, but the numbers are not that high or alarming," Indonesian police deputy spokesman Brigadier-General Edward Aritonang told The Straits Times.

He said that in some of the robberies, the police weapons used had been reported as lost or stolen before the crime was committed. Also, in areas like Aceh, separatists had often raided police or military stations and made off with weapons, he said.

"We have, of course, sanctioned some of our members who were found to have sold or rented out their weapons for money – but there are also incidents in which the arms used in the crimes did not come from us because they did not match our registry numbers," he said.

These guns had most likely been smuggled in and traded on the black market, he said.

Recently, a member of the Free Aceh Movement was reported as saying that the rebels preferred to buy their weapons from Java or Sumatra rather than overseas. The unidentified rebel said the 20-million-rupiah price for an Indonesian-made rifle was cheaper than an AK-47 smuggled via Thailand.

The police deputy spokesman said he did not see any urgency to conduct a weapons audit, as the police regularly held internal weapons checks. He added that the police were short of weapons already. Only a third of the more than 240,000 officers are equipped with guns.

"Ideally, every member of the force should have a gun, but because of the small budget, we have to give priority to officers who are at high risk," he said.