KAI and West Java step up security for rail traffic
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung/Cirebon
On the eve of the Idul Fitri holiday and Christmas, PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state-owned railway company, has launched a joint effort with West Java authorities against an increase of sabotage and vandalism of local railway traffic.
A team of 264 KAI special police personnel, the provincial police, the military, local boy scouts and private radio stations have coordinated to monitor railway traffic from Jakarta to Cirebon on a 24-hour basis.
"The team will regularly patrol the railway traffic three or four times everyday to ensure the safety of trains going through the province," Suhartono, a spokesman for KAI, told The Jakarta Post in Cirebon on Thursday.
Besides conducting a regular patrol, he said, the team would also make a regular check on areas in the province prone to flooding and landslides.
"The operation is launched in line with increasing security disturbances to the railway traffic over the last two months, and in anticipation against possible sabotage and vandalism on the eve the Idul Fitri holiday and Christmas," said Suhartono, who declined to specify the amount of money used to finance the security operation.
He predicted that, as in the previous years, millions of people from Jakarta, Sumatra and the province are expected to use the rail transportation to go home to Central and East Java and Bali to celebrate Idul Fitri which falls on Dec. 15 and Dec. 16.
"We want to make sure the safety of the railway traffic at least seven days before and after the Idul Fitri," he said, adding that the operation is also aimed at winning people's confidence in KAI following a series of train accidents in the last three months.
Suhartono predicted sabotages and vandalism will increase this month, following the explosion of a handmade bomb on a rail track between Cikampek and Tandjung Rasa in Karawang regency last Monday during the beginning of the exodus of people from Jakarta to Central and East Java.
The exodus was expected to reach its climax seven days before Idul Fitri and Christmas.
Therefore, KAI has drafted eight special mobile carriages along the railway to handle any disruption and vandalism of passing trains. The special cars are available for contacts through 34 small and big stations in the province.
The special cars contain necessary equipment for repair works to rail tracks damaged by sabotage, vandalism and natural disasters.
KAI has identified a number of problem points.
Babakan-Losari line is prone to track thefts Luwung-Cileduk line is prone to flood and wire thefts Cikampek-Cirebon line is prone to sabotages and vandalism
Brig. Gen. Dedi S. Komarudin, deputy chief of the West Java Provincial Police, hailed the joint operation, saying security forces would give more serious attention to the railway traffic, along with public areas such as worship places, bus terminals and shopping centers.
"This step is in taking after learning from a series of explosions in Bandung last Christmas," he said, after attending a coordination meeting with Governor R. Nuriana and other authorities in the city on Wednesday.
He said police have deployed 15,000 personnel who were backed up by 8,000 personnel from the local military to step up security in the province along this month.