Police arrest 72 students for brawling

JAKARTA (JP): Police arrested 72 of the hundreds of students involved in a mass brawl on Jl. MT Haryono, East Jakarta, yesterday.

The violence started when a posse from an East Jakarta technical senior high school (STM) who had commandeered a 50-seat public bus attacked rivals from another STM who were loitering on the roadside.

The students smashed the windows of the bus, leaving several innocent passengers injured.

City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata said many of the attackers managed to escape.

"We will summon the students' parents after we identify all of them," Hamami said.

He said the police also seized three sickles, a sword and other weapons which had been left on the bus.

"None of the students claimed the sickles, sword or weapons," Hamami said.

According to the bus driver, Magaraja Tobing, the students on his bus who initiated the brawl were from the Cawang Technical High School, East Jakarta. The bus was plying the Kota to Kampung Rambutan route.

"The students stood in front of my bus near the Cawang toll road gate. They then got on the bus before one of them thrust a steel ruler in my face, forcing me to use the toll road. None of them paid their fare," Tobing said.

He said the students asked him to stop the bus when they saw students from the Berlian Technical High School gathering near the Gelael supermarket on Jl. MT Haryono.

The students poured off the bus and started the brawl. The two groups then threw stones at each other, the driver said.

The attackers got back on the bus, after realizing they were outnumbered. "They asked me to drive them away," the driver said.

A city police patrol, backed up by reinforcements, soon caught up with the bus on the congested street and began to arrest the students.

The majority of those arrested spent last night in police detention.

Tobing said the same group of students had hijacked his bus Saturday. "But they didn't meet their enemies. So, nothing happened that day," Magaraja said.

Sugito, the vice principal of the Cawang Technical High School, who went to the City Police Headquarters after the brawl, said his students had clashed with the Berlian Technical High School for years.

"We had summoned the students from the two schools altogether and briefed them to make peace. It seemed work for a while," he said.

Hamami asked the East Jakarta Police Chief, Lt. Col. Nanan Sukarna, to set up a student alert program, called Pelajar Siaga in his police precinct.

"The program works well in the South Jakarta Police Precinct," he said.

The city authorities have been concerned with the number of student brawls for years. Last year at least 15 students were killed in street clashes. (jun)