Father beats up alleged rapist of his daughter

JAKARTA (JP): Upon knowing that his five-year-old girl had been raped, an angry father, Hutapea, beat up the alleged culprit, who was his own neighbor, in Bekasi on Tuesday morning.

Hutapea, a resident of Jl. Musi in Bekasi Barat said his daughter, Ve, pointed out the man to him, who was a 17-year-old cigarette vendor named Rachmat, his own neighbor.

"Rachmat said he did it ten days ago, and he was sorry. But I was really, really mad. I screamed for help, and together with local residents, I beat up that man."

Police came in to rescue Rachmat from the wrath of local residents.

Meanwhile, police arrested a man over the suspected rape of four elementary schoolgirls, aged between seven and nine, at his residence on Jl. Pinang Poncol in Pamulang Timur, Ciputat, on Tuesday.

Pamulang Police detectives of South Jakarta said the suspect, Hasanuddin alias Udin, alias Gepeng, a 41-year-old gambler, committed the heinous crimes at his own house when the victims came to visit his daughter, Ud.

Gepeng has seven children from three wives.

The victims all lived in the same neighborhood of Pamulang Timur, as Gepeng, and were all school friends of Gepeng's eight- year-old daughter Ud.

Pamulang police identified the victims by their initials, namely Sa, aged seven, As, aged eight, Ea and En, both aged nine.

Pamulang police subprecinct chief Adj. Comr. Salam Setiawan said his men nabbed Gepeng after receiving reports about the alleged rapes from the victims' parents.

Salam added that to date, Gepeng had only admitted to molesting Ea and Sa.

Gepeng has admitted to having inserted "his fingers at least twice," into Ea, last year, and molesting Sa recently this May, Salam said.

"I like girl children. I have never had dirty or pornographic thoughts about kids ... once or twice I played with (the victims) with my hands, but I always had my clothes on," Gepeng said on Tuesday.

The alleged rapes were reported, following two other rapes of underaged girls which occurred in the past week, in two separate locations in Tangerang.

On Monday, Tangerang Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Affan Richwanto reportedly arrested a 16-year-old male student and a 14-year-old male factory worker, for the rapes.

The victims were aged seven and nine respectively.

Both suspects admitted to police that after having watched pornographic movies on video-compact discs (VCDs), they had been aroused and had ended up committing rape.

One of the most tragic rape cases in the capital occurred in Depok in May last year, when a baby girl, aged 16 months, was raped by a 20-year-old man. (ylt)