December 18, 2025 | 10:16 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The mystery of Arya Daru’s death erodes public trust in the police. The investigation must be more professional and transparent.
FROM the outset, it has been difficult to accept the conclusion that the death of diplomat Arya Daru Pangayunan was the result of suicide. There are too many irregularities that strongly indicate a murder and cover-up.
Daru was found dead in his boarding house on July 8, 2025, with his head bound in duct tape and his body wrapped in a blanket from head to toe. There were dozens of bruises on his head, legs and arms—injuries not consistent with suicide. But the police quickly concluded that no crime had taken place. Their hasty conclusion resembles more an endeavor to cover things up rather than to seek the truth.
Numerous crucial facts remain unexplained. Daru’s cell phone, for example, was said to be missing, but a messaging application was still active several hours after he died. A WhatsApp message from his wife, Meta Ayu Puspitantri, had only one check mark, but this suddenly changed to two check marks after Daru had been found dead. There has so far been no satisfactory explanation from the police about these suspicious facts.
In fact, the police never mentioned conducting a digital forensic audit of the WhatsApp account linked to the victim’s laptop—a basic procedure in the investigation of unnatural deaths. If the forensic audit was never carried out, this underlines the poor standards of police investigation.
Instead of providing clarifications, the police have reverted to their old tactic of covering up. Key questions from the family have been answered piecemeal. A number of police statements were even subsequently corrected, including the false allegation that the victim’s wife had asked for the CCTV camera to be moved. This type of inconsistency not only upsets the family, but also undermines the credibility of the police institution.
The Witness and Victim Protection Law clearly guarantees families the right to complete information about the developments in an investigation. This is not a special family right, it is the obligation of investigators to pass on the information. If investigators fail to do so, it is understandable that families seek alternative channels.
The family sent a letter to the National Police Chief, asked for assistance from former senior police officers, and submitted a report to the House of Representatives. It was only after increasing public and political pressure that investigators began to release some information. The police, for example, revealed hotel room reservation records since 2024. But this data only added to the questions without bringing us any closer to an understanding of the cause of death.
Therefore, the public’s questions have become increasingly strident: in order to obtain transparency from the police, do victim’s families have to have political access or the power of advocacy? If so, what about families of other victims who do not have access to such resources?
The most serious problem in this case is not only the number of irregularities, but also the absence of any desire by the authorities to investigate every possibility in line with professional standards. An investigation that is not transparent, detailed or comprehensive only reinforces suspicions that the police would rather cover up the case than uncover the truth.
Arya Daru’s family has a right to justice. And the public is increasingly demanding transparency. Therefore, the police should not push the narrative that this anomalous death was the result of “suicide.” As long as it is allowed to gather dust, the mystery of Arya Daru’s death will increasingly erode public confidence in the police.
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