DPR Commission V Warns KAI After Bekasi Incident: Repetition Would Not Be Smart

This statement was delivered by Lasarus at the outset of a meeting of Commission V of the DPR, the Indonesian House of Representatives, in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday (21 May 2026). Initially, Lasarus questioned how the incident could have happened.

‘As we know, there is public debate about whether there is any room for the system owned by the railway, or the system controlled by the operator PT KAI, to be able to manage the situation? Will this happen again or not? That is a question for the public,’ Lasarus said at the start of the meeting.

He then questioned how to mitigate similar incidents. He noted that with the number of level crossings currently, there is potential for similar incidents to recur.

‘There is certainly a very high likelihood of a similar incident, indeed very likely given the many level crossings. Especially level crossings without guards. When that happens, how does the system control the situation? That is what we want to evaluate today,’ he said.

Then he highlighted the reason KA Agro Bromo Anggrek could become uncontrollable and collide with a KRL that had stopped. He asked whether the system currently possessed cannot control the situation.

‘We, I, do not understand in detail the operations of rail transport, but common sense tells us, Sir, if the system experiences trouble, surely the departure schedule of each train is known, what is it called, Sir Minister, the train timetable? Gapeka, the Grafik Perjalanan Kereta, in that graph it will surely be known where this train is, and roughly its position when this occurs,’ he explained.

‘Then, the inter-train time—if we set the inter-train window at 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 8 minutes, whatever is regulated—there must be technical calculations, so have those calculations recorded whether in the event of an accident ahead we can manage with the minutes available or not?’ he added.

Lasarus emphasised that what has happened cannot be undone. However, he judged that it would be unwise if the incident recurred in the future.

‘What has passed cannot be retrieved, Sir, but if the same incident happens again, it is not wise to say, “sorry, that is not very smart of us” — perhaps the most polite way if we fall into the same hole twice,’ he asserted.

He also stressed the importance of the government being honest about the situation. According to him, if there is a lie, everyone lies to the victims.

‘Because this concerns lives, I told the Minister of Transport on the phone, “Sir, we must disclose this as it truly is, because this is our responsibility to the victims” — yes, Minister, to those who have died. If we lie now we are lying to those who have already gone and experienced this accident,’ he said.

He urged that the issue be disclosed openly. Not to punish, he added, but to find a way out.

‘Let us disclose what happened for improvements going forward. We are not looking for who is at fault, but where the weaknesses lie in the system we have. As for who is to blame, we will hand that over to the police,’ he added.