JAKARTA: Indonesian police are questioning six girls working in a beauty salon who are suspected of being part of a clandestine group dedicated to establishing an Islamic state, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The Jakarta Post quoted police Sergeant Mashidi as saying the six teenagers, picked up in the past week, all wore Muslim headdresses.
Sergeant Mashidi said the girls also wore necklaces given to them after taking an oath of loyalty to the leader of the group, but he refused to name the organisation.
Under police interrogation, the girls admitted they followed the ideas of a radical Indonesian Muslim leader who declared an Islamic state in West Java in 1949 and was crushed by the Indonesian military in the 1950s after an armed struggle.
The Government traditionally acts swiftly and harshly against any sign of Islamic independence.
Indonesia's state ideology, Pancasila, proclaims a secular state based on one God and tolerance of the Islamic, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu religions, even though around 90 per cent of its population of more than 190 million is Muslim.
