Banda Aceh – A second electoral worker has been abducted since the start last weekend of campaigning for milestone elections in Indonesia's Aceh province, police said Wednesday.

A peace agreement last year between former separatist rebels and the Indonesian government paved the way for the first direct elections in Aceh to pick the heads of the province and its 21 districts.

Tengku Ahmad Sabil, campaigning for a candidate for head of Pidie district, was abducted briefly Tuesday, district police chief Asjimain said. Sabil was abducted by a group of unknown men from his home before dusk on Tuesday and returned to his home late in the evening after being beaten up, Asjimain said.

On Friday, a group of men kidnapped a man campaigning for another candidate and beat him up before releasing him hours later. "We are handling these two cases. In the first case, we are already pursuing the perpetrators, while in the second case the victim claims not to know the identity of his kidnappers," the police officer said.

However, the head of the local district Electoral Supervision Committee, Isfandiar, told AFP that Sabil was believed to be campaigning for several candidates.

Eight pairs of candidates are running for the top two positions in Pidie district. Pidie district is just 120 kilometers east of the Aceh capital, Banda Aceh, and was one of the strongholds of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The GAM entered a peace pact with the government in August last year and has since disbanded. Two former GAM members are running on an independent ticket in the December 11 district elections in Pidie.

Elections in the 21 districts of Aceh will be held simultaneously with the polls to pick the next governor and vice governor of the province. Tension has risen in the runup to the polls with clashes last week between supporters of rival candidates.