100 prostitutes arrested in Bogor

BOGOR: About 100 alleged prostitutes were netted in a series of operations launched separately by the police and the local administration on Monday and Tuesday night following Saturday's attacks on a number of hotels and suspected brothels in Cipayung, part of the Puncak resort area.

The police conducted the raids on street cafes located in the Parung area on Tuesday night, and arrested some 600 women who were suspected of being prostitutes.

On Monday and Tuesday night, the Bogor administration launched a similar operation along Jl. Pajajaran -- near the Hero supermarket, in front of the PMI (Indonesian Red Cross) hospital, and around the Kujang monument -- as well as on Jl.Juanda and in the vicinity of Taman Topi park. A total of 39 women were netted.

The Bogor administration will continue the raids so as to avoid a repetition of Saturday's disturbances, according to Suhud Achyadi, who led the operation.

On Saturday, hundreds of vigilantes vandalized a number of hotels and other buildings in Cipayung, and looted the victims' belongings. They claimed that they took the law into their own hands because the police and the authorities had failed to eliminate prostitution in the area.

The police arrested some 40 people, but 12 of them, who were students of a Muslim boarding school, were later released. -- JP