Jakarta - Police in Indonesia's Papua province said on Friday they were hunting suspected separatist rebels who raided a police post and stabbed the wife of an officer before making off with four guns and ammunition.

About 20 suspected rebels of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) attacked a police post in Puncak Jaya district on Thursday night and stabbed the wife of a policeman in the chest, said Papua police chief Bagus Eko Danto.

"The woman is in critical condition after she was stabbed three times with a sickle," he said.

He said the attackers were armed with traditional weapons such as sickles, arrows and other crude weapons.

Bagus said the attackers also stole 60 bullets.

The OPM, comprising a small group of separatist rebels, have been fighting a sporadic rebellion in Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, since the early 1960s.

Papua, a predominantly ethnic Melanesian province 3,700 kilometres north-east of Jakarta, is a former Dutch colony that became an Indonesian province in 1964. (dpa)