Over 90 students arrested for brawl

JAKARTA (JP): Police arrested and charged 91 students from various technical high schools with brawling after an early Saturday morning altercation which sent at least three youths to the hospital with injuries.

According to the police, the brawl started at around 7:15 a.m. on Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta inside a Mayasari Bhakti bus plying the Ciputat, South Jakarta - Pasar Baru route.

"The bus was almost full of students heading for their respective schools in Central Jakarta when another large group of students who were walking suddenly stoned the bus," the driver of the P18 B bus, Sarno, 27, told The Jakarta Post.

"I don't know which schools all the students were from, but what I do know is the brawl was started by the students on the ground," he said.

Police sources quoted students as confirming that the attack erupted when the walking students, believed to be from a technical high school, pointed to the group of students on the bus and started running toward the bus and throwing stones.

The stone throwing smashed most of the bus windows, forcing the driver to stop and the passengers to disembark into the street in a panic.

As the attack escalated, a police truck full of elite Mobile Brigade officers passed by and rushed to stop the brawl.

Many of the students on the street fled easily, but almost all of the students still inside the bus were detained.

They were taken to the Jakarta Police Headquarters for further questioning. Once there, the students were told to strip down to their underwear.

The police confiscated at least five knives from them.

The three injured students, Firdaus, Freddy and Syafrizal, were rushed to the hospital.

"None of them were seriously injured," said an officer.

Preliminary questioning revealed that the arrested students were from STM I Boedi Oetomo, STM V and STM IV PGRI.

"I wish I knew the background of the brawl," said the Boedi Oetomo school's principal M. Khusen, who went to the police headquarters to see his students.

Saturday's brawl is believed to have involved the largest number of students yet.

Since the new school year started in July, student brawls have been frequent. Many people expect the number of fights to further increase in the next few months unless the authorities take stern action to curb them.

According to police data, there were 12 student brawls in the first six months of this year.

Last year, there were 215 brawls recorded, with 12 students and one other person killed, compared to 160 brawls with 10 students dead in 1994.

The data also show that a total of 604 students were arrested and 77 of them were jailed for fighting last year. (bsr)