Two jobless men arrested for robbing taxi driver
JAKARTA (JP): South Jakarta police have arrested two unemployed men for allegedly being involved in the wounding and robbery of a taxi driver.
The suspects, identified as Wahidin Siregar, 19, and Abas Harahap, 18, were busted early yesterday.
Two accomplices, identified as Rico and Ashari, were still at large. They managed to escape from police during a chase yesterday.
During police interrogation Siregar and Harahap allegedly admitted to torturing Queen taxi driver Hariono Basin, slashing his hand with a sickle and hitting him in the head with a brick.
The men said they stopped the taxi on Jl. Melawai Raya about 11 p.m. Sunday and asked the driver, Hariono, to take them to an address in Pancoran.
During the trip, the four men attacked the helpless driver and stole Hariono's earnings of Rp 121,000 (US$45.67), the two men allegedly told police.
They claimed that their two accomplices had hit the driver and slashed his hand when he refused to hand over his money.
Hariono smashed the taxi against the curb in a bid to attract people's attention. The four men jumped out of the car and ran in different directions to avoid the risk of being punished by an angry mob.
The wounded driver then got out of the car, which had stopped near the Mampang police sub-precinct, and screamed for help.
Mampang police officers preparing for their routine patrol, heard the scream and pursued the suspects. Siregar and Harahap were nabbed not far from the scene.
Police seized a sickle believed to have been used to wound the taxi driver.
South Jakarta police chief Lt. Col. Sisno Adiwinoto said yesterday that Sunday's taxi robbery was the first case of its kind in the area for the past two months.
Sisno said the rare occurrence of theft from taxis in South Jakarta during that time was mainly due to increased police night patrols and raids on popular areas for such a crime.
According to police data, dozens of taxi drivers in South Jakarta and other parts of the city have been killed and wounded by robbers who pretend to be passengers.
Bekasi
Separately, Bekasi police caught six men who were believed to have robbed bus passengers on Sunday morning.
The six, aged between 19 and 29, got into the bus traversing the Jakarta-Cikampek route on Jl. Rawa Panjang, Bekasi.
Pretending to be street vendors selling goods to the seven passengers onboard, the men then allegedly forced all the passengers to hand over their valuable items.
However, one of the passengers opened the bus window and screamed for help when the bus passed in front of a police station.
The six suspects panicked and ordered the driver, Nedi, 38, to stop the bus so they could jump off.
Nedi drove the vehicle, owned by the Sahabat transportation firm, to the police station to report the incident.
Based on a tipoff from the passengers, the local police arrested the six suspects a few hours later in a nearby area with Rp 31,000 and two razor blades in their possession.
They were identified as Komaruddin, RH Siagian, Kusnadi, Miswan, Syaiful Bahri and Samin. (cst)