The Indonesian military has deployed soldiers to Manokwari,in the province of West Papua to control thousands of residents who took to the streets to protest the killing of two men by police a day earlier.
The district military commander in Manokwari, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sitorus, said soldiers were deployed around vital installations and at locations where crowds had gathered.
The head of the Manokwari Police, Adjunct Senior Commander, Bambang Ricky, said officers had been forced to fire their weapons last Wednesday in self-defence when dozens of residents became violent after a motorist fled the scene of an accident.
He said that day, mobs armed with knives and spears blocked roads and threw stones at Brimob officers who arrived at the scene of the accident.
Bambang said that other Brimob officers conducted a number of raids to locate those responsible, firing weapons while rioting continued, killing two residents and injuring others.
The Jakarta Globe reports earlier this month, officers killed seven people in Buol, Central Sulawesi, after residents attacked a police station.
