Four arrested for alleged extortion

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)