Four arrested for alleged extortion

JAKARTA (JP): A police officer shot and injured two technical high school students and, with the help of bystanders, arrested two others for allegedly extorting money from bus passengers in East Jakarta late Wednesday.

City police spokesman Lt. Col. Zainuri Lubis told reporters on Thursday that the four students, along with several fellow students, threatened passengers on a government-owned PPD public bus, on the Tanjung Priok-Kampung Rambutan route 43, with sickles and knives before taking cash and valuables.

Lubis identified the two injured students as Muslih from STM Poncol in Central Jakarta and Abdul Aziz of STM Matra in East Jakarta. Both senior technical high schools are privately run. The other two students arrested were Zakaria and Iwan Kurniawan.

All of the four students were in police custody on Thursday.

Based on preliminary police investigations and testimony from witnesses, the students entered the non-air conditioned PPD bus on Jl. D.I. Panjaitan at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

"Inside the bus, the students spread to all corners of the vehicle," Lubis said.

Witnesses said the teenagers moved so fast that passengers had no chance to fight back.

They surprised passengers and forced them to hand over valuables and cash, one passenger recalled.

Luckily, another passenger, Halmardi, saw a policeman behind the bus riding a motorcycle.

"He screamed to alert the officer, who is apparently a Mobile Brigade unit member," Lubis said.

The officer, identified by Lubis only as Widayat, stopped the bus in front of Grasera supermarket, where the students jumped out of the bus and sprinted in all directions.

Widayat fired three warning shots in the air in an attempt to stop the students.

Realizing his warning shots had been ignored by the teenagers, officer Widayat then aimed his gun, loaded with rubber bullets, at the students.

"He saw the fleeing students carrying sickles, machetes and knives," Lubis said.

From the four students, police confiscated wristwatches, jewelry and Rp 450,000 (US$52) cash, Lubis said.

The students, however, told reporters at the police station they did not threaten or steal anything from the bus passengers.

Wounded Aziz claimed he was only helping his friends from privately run STM Bahariwan of North Jakarta meet the challenge of another school to a fight.

"We were about to attack STM Bonser (East Jakarta) students, who were waiting for us near their school, but police stopped our bus and told us to get out," he said. (emf)