I do not have the answer to your question -- just a couple of suggestions. See if someone else can confirm or disconfirm them.

Firstly: It seems to me that there is not just one letter missing. There is something wrong with the whole word.

"-ntk-" is not a possible consonant cluster in Malay. So whatever the last letter is it still does not make a phonotactically possible Malay word.

Of course, it could be a word from another language being used in a Malay sentence. But what could that language be. The most likely candidate is Arabic.

However, if it is a Malay word that has been mispelt, or mis-typed, or which has been written illegibly so that it is hard to make out, then the last letter could be "k" -- giving a finally "-kan" verbal affix.

Even then what might the verbal root be?

"taat" ?

"talak" ?

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Note added at 2002-08-31 09:04:42 (GMT)
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If the root is \"taat\" making the whole word \"taatkan\" it is hard to know what it would mean in this context. Also the usually verbal suffix for \"taat\" is \"-i\" giving \"taati\".

If the root is \"talak\" (giving: \"talak-kan\") that would make more sense. Whether this results in a natural sounding sentence is something that only (a) native speaker judgements and (b) the rest of the context could determine.

Finally, even if it is a matter of a root (\"taat\", \"talak\" or something else) plus verbal affix (\"-kan\") you still have only a marginally grammatical sentence. In modern written Indonesian, in subject + verb + object constructions, it is more usual to use a \"me-\" prefix -- though, as you would know, that can be varied in the spoken language or for stylistic reasons.

I know that what I have said is very inconclusive. It was just that nobody else was in a hurry to respond to this question so I thought I would have a go.

If you do not find a clear solution to your problem then you could deal with it simply by pointing out that there is an intractable problem with the legibility of the text and by supplying some kind of explanatory note. It possibly does not matter that much from the point of view of the overall drift of the text and the legal intentions of the document.

Finally, and if all else fails, you could try to locate one or more similar documents. The language used is probably very routine and you would find similar and even identical sentences in similar documents.

I hope that, one way or another, and even if only indirectly, these comments will be of some use to you.