Girl hit by stray bullet

YOGYAKARTA: Doctors at Sardjito Hospital will operate today on Siti Darmayanti, an eight-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet from a policeman's gun as she walked to school last Saturday.

The second-grader at elementary school in Temandang, Kranggan, Temanggung -- some 100 kilometers northwest of here -- was walking with her elder sister Irna Susanti on the embankment of a paddy field when she screamed and collapsed bleeding.

A passerby examined her and found gaping wounds in her right side. Later examinations determined that a bullet had pierced her right arm and lodged in her right hip.

She was rushed to the hospital in Yogyakarta after the local village health clinic said they could not treat her injuries.

Reports said the bullet was from a gun owned by Suwardi of the Ciamis police precinct in West Java. He was said to be in the village on vacation, and had been practicing firing his gun.

A witness said he saw Suwardi fire six shots -- two in an upward direction, three downward and another fired as he squatted.

Siti's father Suroyo, who works as a cleaner at Temanggung's Cleaning and Landscaping Service, said all expenses for his daughter's medical treatment, including transportation fees, would be assumed by the Central Java police. (swa)