University closed after seven hurt in mass brawl

University closed after seven hurt in mass brawl

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar, South Sulawesi

The State University of Makassar (UNM) in South Sulawesi was
closed for three days starting Wednesday, after seven people were
injured in a mass brawl involving hundreds of students from
different faculties.

The closure was aimed at clearing up the campus, located on
Jl. Daeng Tata in the province's capital of Makassar, and at
preventing the clash from spreading, UNM rector Idris Arief said.

Police, who arrived on the scene one hour after the clash
erupted, fired warning shots in the air to stop the brawl between
students from the language and arts faculty and those from the
faculty of engineering.

At least one student, identified as Andi, was arrested briefly
for questioning at the Makassar police station for carrying a
dagger during the scuffle.

However, police later released him after Andi's classmates
from the language and arts faculty protested the arrest. Andi
denied the weapon belonged to him.

The scuffle began at 10 a.m. local time with the opposing
groups of students attacking each other. Many were carrying
weapons such as badik (Makassar traditional dagger), arrows,
knives and rocks.

Witnesses said that the fight was apparently in retaliation of
an attack against the secretariat of the engineering student
association earlier, at 1.30 a.m. on the same day, by an
unidentified group of people.

Victims accused their classmates from the language and arts
faculty of perpetrating the attack, following the alleged
blackmailing and beating of those students by their rivals from
the engineering faculty.

The rector and other university leaders could not disclose the
motives behind the two incidents, and said they had left the case
in the hands of the police.

Two of the seven injured students, Sumirah from the language
and arts faculty, and Fransiskus from the engineering faculty,
were rushed to a nearby hospital for sustaining serious wounds.

The five other victims were identified as Ikram, Basuki
Rahman, Arsyad, Anwar and Andi, who suffered minor injuries.

The mass brawl was not the first to take place at the
university. The laboratory building belonging to the engineering
faculty was set ablaze when a similar brawl broke out two years
ago.