Suspects in Bekasi gang rape identified

Suspects in Bekasi gang rape identified

JAKARTA (JP): Bekasi police claim that they have identified
the men believed to have raped a mother and her two teenage
daughters during a pre-dawn burglary on Monday in the small,
isolated village of Kampung Cimatis, Jati Karya, in Pondok Gede.

The incident took place at around 3:30 a.m. on Monday at the
house of Acan, 45, in the Pondok Gede district of Bekasi, 30
kilometers east of Jakarta.

Acan told police that about eight people armed with sharp
weapons broke into his house. However, before they broke into the
house, located near the Jagorawi toll road, they tied up Acan's
18-year-old son, Ali, and his four friends who were sleeping on
the house veranda.

Acan said he was also tied up later by the burglars in the
living room.

Failing to find any valuables in the house, Acan said the
group dragged Acan's wife, identified only as An, 43, to the
kitchen and took turns raping her.

Later, the criminals raped both of Acan's daughters,
identified only as Ng, 15, and Ac, 14, after dragging the junior
high school students into two different rooms.

Acan told police that he saw at least six members of the group
enter the two rooms by turns.

"They are animals," the father of six children said in
disgust.

"We have formed two teams to hunt the suspects, whose
identities we have determined," Bekasi police chief Lt. Col. Hari
Pribadi told reporters after attending a ceremony for the
establishment of the city police health information center
yesterday.

According to Hari, the suspects might be the same ones that
robbed the house of the head of a nearby village about an hour
earlier.

"But this time they might have missed their target because
this is the family of a poor farmer," he said. "They found
nothing valuable in the house and then decided to rape the
members of the family."

Hari, however, refused to name any of the rapists, saying only
that at least five are suspected to have been involved.

Officer Hari said that the group managed only to steal two
grams of gold jewelry from Acan's wife and three wristwatches
from their house, which is located away from the public housing
complexes.

In January last year, a mother, her four children between
three to 14-years-old, and the mother's sister were brutally
killed in the same area by a single suspect, who is still at
large.(bsr)