KAI and West Java step up security for rail traffic

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.