Sri Handayani, a 25-year-old Jakarta resident, has reported to the police that her eldest child, age 2, is being held for ransom by a woman who allegedly claims to be the boy’s babysitter and said would not return the boy to his mother unless she was paid Rp 40 million.
According to Sri, she has not seen her baby boy, identified by his initials DAR, since June 2016. Back then, Sri asked her aunt, ESS, to babysit DAR. However, ESS passed the duty on to her cousin, WS, who then passed the boy on to her boss, S.
Sri said S refused to give DAR back to her and would now only do it if she is paid Rp 40 million, which is the fee accumulated from “babysitting” DAR for the past 7 months.
The Central Jakarta Metro Police are now investigating the case, but are not yet treating it as a kidnapping.
“From what we heard of Sri’s story, we can’t categorize this as a kidnapping yet. This is a missing person case for now,” said AKBP Tahan Marpaung, head of the Central Jakarta Metro Police Crime Investigation Unit, as quoted by Okezone yesterday.
The police say they are going to question everyone involved.
The National Commission for the Protection of Indonesian Children (KPAI) say they are also going to carry out an investigation into the case.
“We must find out their motives. Why did [Sri] let someone else care for her son? Are there other parties involved? Who else is involved?” said KPAI Deputy Head Susanto, as quoted by Okezone.
