High school student busted in toll road robbery

TANGERANG (JP): Motorists can no longer consider anywhere safe these days.

Robbers have devised a wide range of techniques to run their business almost free of fear on the roads, from the city's crowded intersections at peak hour to toll roads during the wee hours.

The nationwide order for police officers to shoot on sight order any criminal they catch in the act has had little impact on the culprits.

In the early hours of Tuesday, a group of at least three men, including a high school student, placed a wooden beam and spread lubricating oil at kilometer 18.600 of the Tangerang-Merak toll road in an attempt to trap motorists.

After few minutes of waiting, no prey was hooked.

At about 1:30 a.m., they changed their modus operandi. This time they place a wooden plank with 13 nails protruding out of it on the toll road, which is usually deserted at such an hour.

They then walked to a distance from the site and hungrily awaited their prey.

A few minutes later, a speeding sedan ran over the plank.

"The driver, noticing a problem with his steering, tried to control the car. He pulled over to the side of the road," chief of the special Speed Reaction Police Patrol for Tangerang toll road, First Lt. Rolly Laheba, told reporters here Tuesday.

Wary of being trapped by street robbers, the unidentified driver decided to keep on moving slowly before finally stopping about three kilometers from where his tires had been punctured.

He apparently had no idea that where he chose to stop was the exact place the culprits waited in the dark for their victims.

"He was just about to get out of the car to check his tires when the three men suddenly appeared as though they were going to offer help," officer Laheba said.

"Before he could do anything, one of the suspects threatened him with a machete," he added.

According to the police officer, he and his subordinates just happened to be passing the site and saw the sedan stopped on the side of the deserted toll road.

The patrol officers, he said, approached the car and realized the driver was in a difficult position.

"When we told the three culprits to surrender, they sprinted away," Laheba said.

After firing two warning shots, one of the robbers obeyed the officers' order.

The surrendered suspect was later identified as 18-year-old Muhammad Husni Thamrin, a student of a private senior high school. He is a resident of Warung Mangga village in Cipondoh, which is located near the scene.

His two accomplices are still at large. From the scene and the suspects' hiding place, the police found two wooden planks with sharp nails sticking out of them.

The police version, however, differs slightly from that given by the toll road operators, who said it was their patrol officials who made the arrest.

A source of state-run PT Jasa Marga toll road operator said Tuesday that Thamrin was netted after officials on patrol inspected the site following a report from a Kijang van driver, who said he had almost been robbed on the toll road.

The driver said he had run over some nails which he believed were deliberately put on the toll road, he said.

Based on the tip-off, a number of patrol officials were dispatched to check the scene.

"Upon their arrival there, the officials saw several men examining the toll road. The men, however, quickly ran in various directions when the patrol car approached them," the source said.

On Dec. 10, a businessman and his spouse were robbed on the Tangerang-Merak toll road by a group of three men, who were pretending to cross the road.

The three approached the couple's car, broke the window with a hammer and threatened businessman Risam and his wife with sharp weapons. The culprits made off with a mobile phone, two wristwatches and Rp 500,000 (US$67). They fled the scene in a dark colored Kijang van.

One of the robbers, identified as Ajum bin Saleh, 41, was apprehended after police traced the ownership of the van from the license plate. (41/bsr)