Two jobless men arrested for robbing taxi driver
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)