JAKARTA, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Eight civilians were allegedly shot dead by Papuan separatist group, which Indonesia called an armed criminal group on Wednesday, in Boega district, Puncak Regency, Papua province, Provincial Police's Spokesman, Senior Commissioner Ahmad Kamal, confirmed to journalists on Friday.
The eight victims -- identified as B, R, BN, BT, J, E, S and PD -- were employees of telematics company Palaparing Timur Telematika (PTT). They were fixing a Tower Base Transceiver Station (BTS) owned by Indonesia's state-owned telecommunications operator Telkomsel when the incident happened.
Kamal said that as of Friday, the authorities still could not evacuate the victims due to bad weather, while the crime location could only be reached using air transportation.
"We have instructed our team to immediately evacuate them as soon as possible and conduct further investigation into the case," Kamal said.
The PTT released a statement in January that there had been 174 vandalism acts damaging the PTT's facilities allegedly committed by the armed criminal group across Papua and West Papua provinces.
"One of the vandalism acts carried out by the armed group was the burning of two of our BTS facilities and forced termination of our fiber optic cables. Most of the acts occurred in mountain areas," PTT General Manager for Operations, Widodo Yuli Prasetyo, said as quoted from the company's official website. ■
