Police arrest 72 students for brawling

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)