Basuki “BTP” Tjahaja Purnama, aka the former Jakarta Governor formerly known as Ahok, has been pretty low-key since his release from prison yesterday, but all signs suggest that he will soon marry his current girlfriend (and his ex-wife’s former bodyguard), a police officer named Puput Nastiti Devi.
Puput, 22, is apparently preparing herself for her new life with BTP, having already resigned from the police force’s Social Service (Yanma) unit, where she previously held the position of Second Police Brigadier.
“Puput resigned from the Indonesian Police on January 9. She’s now a civilian,” Yanma Unit Chief Grand Commissioner Aprihasti Bakti said, as quoted by Kumparan.
Puput reportedly got close to BTP during his incarceration while she was still working for BTP’s ex-wife. Puput, who hails from the East Java city of Nganjuk, was said to have often brought food to BTP in prison.
Their planned marriage is now all but official after it was confirmed that Puput’s family has submitted marriage documents to the Pasir Gunung Selatan administrative village office in Depok on January 17.
“Administratively, I have fulfilled the service for our resident Puput, who applied for marriage,“ Pasir Gunung Selatan Subdistrict Head, Aslih Sinten said Thursday, as quoted by Brilio.
Aslih added that he doesn’t know the date of the wedding because it wasn’t listed in the documents. He only knows that the wedding will take place in Menteng, Central Jakarta, and be registered in the district’s civil registration office.
Sources close to BTP previously hinted that his wedding with Puput would take place on February 15, but that was denied by BTP’s sister.
Jakarta’s former governor was released from prison yesterday after nearly two years (he was given a 3.5-month sentence reduction due to good behavior and holiday remissions) after being convicted on blasphemy charges that fanned fears over religious intolerance in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.
BTP — the Indonesian capital’s first non-Muslim governor in half a century and its first ethnic Chinese leader — had been a popular politician who won praise for trying to clean up the traffic-clogged megacity and clamp down on corruption.
But his downfall came quickly after comments he made on the campaign trail during a re-election bid saw him accused, and later convicted, of blasphemy towards Islam.
