Obscene callers told their victims to do fatal acts

JAKARTA (JP): Three of the 60 junior high school students who were victims of obscene and threatening phone calls early last month said on Tuesday that the callers also ordered them to perform fatal acts.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post, the students said that the callers, whose identities remain a mystery, ordered the teenage victims to electrocute themselves and drink insecticide.

However, none of the students followed the lethal orders.

"I did not drink it (insecticide). But I did everything else she (the caller) asked me to do, including sticking a needle in the skin of my penis, tying rubber-bands around my penis and putting glue on my penis," Amir (not his real name), one of the victims, said.

He said the caller identified herself as Ibu Etty, Amir's teacher at the school for religious affairs he attends.

Another student, Eddie (not his real name), said the caller, who claimed to be his language teacher Ibu Nurhayati Lubis, asked him to tie a tape recorder cord around his penis and plug the cord into a wall socket.

"Of course I didn't want to follow that kind of order. The woman also wanted me to apply glue to my penis and tie rubber- bands around it. I didn't do any of those things either," Eddie said.

He recalled that the caller had a very loud voice which seemed to be of Batak origin.

"But she was sweet to me even when she called me a liar after I refused to follow her orders," Eddie said.

The same female caller also called another student, Jason (not his real name).

"She told me to poke the tip of a pencil into the hole of my penis. But I disobeyed the order because it was impossible for me to believe that Ibu Lubis would ask me to do such a thing. I then told my parents everything," Jason said.

Jason said that he did follow the callers command to apply glue to his penis.

The three students are from SMP 49 in East Jakarta.

As reported late last week, some 60 students from SMP 49 and SMP 68 in South Jakarta were ordered by unidentified callers to mutilate their genitals and perform other dangerous sexual acts.

The orders were accompanied by the threat of demotion from their grade unless they complied.

Most of the students suffered minor injuries to their genitals after obeying the commands. Schoolboys were told to tie rubber bands around their penises or to put glue on their penises. Schoolgirls were ordered to poke the outer parts of their vaginas with needles or pins.

None of the students from SMP 68 were willing to comment on the incidents.

According to Bambang Noegroho, deputy principal at SMP 49, the unidentified callers began making the calls during the first week of February.

"At least two students stuck pencils up their anuses. Almost all of the students I interviewed were told to use pencils, pens, rubber bands, rulers, wires and glue," Bambang said.

He added that the teachers who the callers claimed to be either sick or out of town when the calls were made.

"Ibu Etty, for example, was seriously ill in a hospital and could not get out of bed. Ibu Lubis was in Bandung," he said.

Ibu Diana Abdullah, an English teacher at SMP 49 whose name was also used by the callers, said that she was at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Feb. 12, the day the callers used her name, with her sister, who was leaving for Amsterdam.

"My other sister, who is a doctor, was also with me at the airport," said Diana, who has been a teacher for 19 years.

Bambang said that the callers seemed to know which teachers "could not be reached" if students or students' parents wanted to "double check".

Psychologist Tika Bisono urged students and their parents to write down the time of any future threatening telephone calls they receive.

"Based on that data, the parents could ask PT Telkom to find out the phone number of the caller," she said.

"What's funny to me is that until now the schools themselves have not called Telkom to check where those calls originated from," she added.

Psychiatrist Dadang Hawari and psychologists Gagan Hartana and Joy Mangowal on Friday labeled the callers psychopaths. (ylt)