City's crime rate stays high during Idul Fitri holidays
City's crime rate stays high during Idul Fitri holidays
JAKARTA (JP): The massive exodus of about a third of the city's nine million souls for the recent Idul Fitri festivities failed to reduce the number of criminal acts and fatal accidents in the city and its surrounding areas.
Crime in the capital was still high yesterday, three days after the first day of the Idul Fitri holidays.
Violent murders, robberies and fatal accidents have hit the city, which has been left by about three million people for both the Moslem celebration and the Chinese Lunar Year.
At least five men were killed on Thursday and yesterday alone.
Zainal Asikin, 40, an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver, died with no less than 13 severe stab wounds in his head and abdomen. He is strongly believed to have been killed by the two passengers he was carrying on a lonely road near Kampung Mariuk in Desa Gandasari village in Cibitung, Bekasi, in the early hours yesterday.
After killing the ojek driver, the culprits threw the dead body on the road side and took Asikin's bike and wallet.
Arrest
The two suspects, identified as Sabin, 19, and Markam, 20, were arrested a few minutes later by local military officers thanks to tips from security officers of the Lippo Cikarang housing complex.
The security officers stopped the men after noticing that the motorcycle Sabin was driving appeared to be smeared with fresh blood. The suspects tried to bribe the officers by offering Rp 50,000 in cash. But the officers flatly rejected the offer.
According to his brother, Asikin had decided to work hard until early in the morning in order to earn money for one of his sons, who was going to be circumcized.
The second case took place on Thursday evening on Jl. Sentra Primer, Cakung,in East Jakarta when a driver of a Metromini bus on the Kampung Melayu-Cakung route was brutally attacked by a group of six passengers, who refused to pay the official fare.
Eyewitnesses said that driver Edison Tampubolon, 30, was attacked on board the bus while trying to help his conductor force the six men to pay up.
He died instantly when one of the passengers hit him over the head with an iron bar.
Tampubolon's colleagues were angry and urged the local police to arrest the six men, believed to be local residents.
On Thursday, a young activist at a local mosque at Sawah Ujung in Pedongkelan village in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, was fatally stabbed while trying to break up a fight.
Still at large
Two unidentified men, believed to have killed Agus Heryadi, 21, are still at large.
Also on Thursday, the corpse of a maintenance department official at the Graha Aktiva building on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta was found dead, his head crushed by the lift he had been repairing.
Ahmad Daruri, 37, died when the lift was turned on by his colleague, Pramono.
The Setiabudi police could not yet say whether Pramono would be detained or not.
Earlier in the day, an elderly man, with no identification on his person, was found dead, his head, legs and arms mangled, on the Klender railway track in Cakung, East Jakarta.
The local police have sent the unidentified corpse to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in order to allow any relatives of missing persons to identify the body.
Police yesterday also reported a pre-dawn robbery at the house of an Australian pilot in Bintaro subdistrict in Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta.
There were no fatalities. But Jon Louis, 36, the owner, was quoted by local detectives as saying that the robbers had stolen his 20-inch television set, laser disc player and several documents, including his passport. (bsr)