After six followers of Indonesian cleric, Rizieq Shihab was shot and killed by the police on the outskirts of Jakarta early Monday, now the officers were tailing the men as part of an investigation.
The officers say the incident was divisive because the authorities described it as an attack.
As cited News24xx.com from NYNews, the cars that carrying Mr. Rizieq’s followers stopped the police car and began attacking six uniformed officers with revolvers, sickles, and a sword.
Then the officers, fearing for their lives, fired in self-defense, the police said. At that incident, six men were killed and four other men fled. The six men were bodyguards for Mr. Rizieq and were part of an eight-car entourage escorting the 55-year-old cleric and his family to a Quran study session shortly after midnight.
And no police officers were reported to be harmed.
As information, Mr. Rizieq is a fiery Muslim cleric who heads the Islamic Defenders Front, a prominent Islamic group known for its extremism, has been at the center of controversy in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, ever since he returned from self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia.
Since his arrival four weeks ago, he has flouted coronavirus restrictions by holding events with thousands of people, refused to undergo government-mandated coronavirus testing, and called for a “moral revolution,” in which Indonesia would impose his vision of Islamic law, known as Shariah.
Representatives of the Islamic Defenders Front said that the police had fired first and that the men were victims of extrajudicial killings that should be investigated as a human rights violation.
“What happened is murder,” said the group’s secretary-general, Munarman, who, like many Indonesians, uses one name.
After cofounding the Islamic Defenders Front as a civilian militia in 1998, Mr. Rizieq was convicted twice and sent to prison for inciting violence. When he left for Saudi Arabia in 2017, he faced a pornography charge for sending lewd text messages. The charge was later dropped.
Mr. Rizieq had been summoned by the police for questioning on Monday regarding his coronavirus protocol violations. He had ignored an earlier summons.
