JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesian police arrested Friday the commander of an Islamic militant group that has been fighting with Christians in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia.
Jafar Umar Thalib, commander of Laskar Jihad (Holy War Troops), was arrested at Surabaya airport in East Java Province and flown to Jakarta for detainment at National Police headquarters.
National Police chief Gen. Surojo Bimantoro said Thalib was suspected of carrying out provocative activities and implementing Islamic sharia law to punish his followers, which is illegal under Indonesian law.
''I am accused of inciting hatred against a certain religion and committing violence which resulted in the death of people. That is a false accusation. They made it up,'' Thalib told reporters.
When asked whether any of his thousands of followers would react negatively to his arrest, he said ''That's the responsibility of the police.''
Thousands of deaths stemming from religious-related conflicts have occurred on the Maluku Islands since early 1999.
Meanwhile, police said they have also arrested a university professor on suspicion of provoking his own ethnic Dayak followers to kill several hundred migrant Madurese settlers on Borneo Island in February.
Muhammad Usop was arrested Thursday in the Borneo town of Banjarmasin and flown to Jakarta for detention.
In the February violence, mobs of Dayaks, indigenous peoples from Borneo, targeted the Madurese settlers and their property in the Central Kalimantan provincial town of Sampit.
Official figures put the death toll of Madurese at more than 500, but a local government official, requesting anonymity, said the actual toll could be as high as 3,000.
Many Madurese were beheaded in the violence that forced almost 100,000 to return to Madura, a small island just off Java.
AP-NY-05-04-01 0715EDT
Copyright 2001 The Kyodo News Service.