New Delhi: India on December 17 strongly took up with the Indonesian government the issue of arrest in Jakarta of Polaris Software Labs CEO Arun Jain over a commercial dispute and hoped it would assist in resolving the situation at the earliest.

The Indonesian Ambassador in New Delhi was called to the foreign office to convey India's views on the issue, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said.

''We have taken it up strongly both in Delhi and in Jakarta,'' he said adding, ''we hope that the Indonesian authorities would assist in resolving this situation as soon as possible.''

Along with Jain another company executive Rajiv Malhotra has also been detained.

Jain's detention for the past three days follows a commercial dispute with Bank Artha Graha, which had given Polaris a $ 1.1 million order for its banking software development.

The agreements signed in the middle of this year covered central processing, disaster recovery and branch server related work, the company said. The contract was to be completed by July 2003.

The Indonesian bank served a notice of termination on Polaris, which was contested by the company.

Jain travelled to Jakarta with his team of senior executives to resolve some commercial issues.

Polaris said when Jain arrived at the bank office in Jakarta, they were detained and not allowed to leave the premises. On the bank's complaint the Indonesian police detained them.

PTI