LAKSAMANA.Net, March 30, 2005 11:55 PM
Grenade Attack on Red Light Area Injures 11
Laksamana.Net - Police are investigating a grenade attack on a red light area in
Jakarta that left 11 people injured.
The explosion occurred at a roadside drinks stall at 10.15pm Tuesday (29/3/05) on
Jalan Taya Bogor in the Boker area of Ciracas, East Jakarta. Boker is a common
night haunt for freelance prostitutes and their customers, despite repeated efforts by
the city administration to stop the sex trade there.
Police said the explosive device was apparently a training grenade of the variety used
by police and soldiers in exercises.
The grenade was apparently thrown from a distance of about six meters to the
crowded drinks stall operated by a woman named Yolanda, said Jakarta Police
spokesman Tjiptono.
Seven of the injured, mostly women, were treated in Pasar Rebo Public Hospital,
while four men were taken to Harapan Bunda Public Hospital. All had small splinters
of metal shrapnel in their limbs, but reports said only two of the wounded were
seriously hurt.
Tjiptono said police had questioned 12 witnesses but were yet to find the perpetrators
or the motive for the attack.
A witness identified as Arifin (35) told police he saw the grenade rolling from the roof
of a stall operated by a woman named Yuyun and then fall in front of Yolanda's stall,
where many people were drinking.
Boker had for years had a localized brothel center, but the prostitutes were kicked out
when the Jakarta administration in 2003 announced plans to transform the area into a
sports center.
About 200 local families were also evicted from the neighborhood, while land-owners
received compensation ranging from Rp350,000 to Rp1.2 million per square meter.
But until now there is no sign of the sports center. The land remains vacant and the
city administration has so far installed some street lights and erected a 2-meter high
fence around the area, signposted with the friendly message ‘Property of the Jakarta
Provincial Administration'.
The prostitutes soon returned to the area. Each day at about 6pm they set up tents,
where they conduct business until about 4am, when the tents are taken down. The
thriving sex trade prompted other locals to set up makeshift bars, usually serving beer
and playing dangdut music.
East Jakarta Mayor Koesnan Abdul Halim claims to have repeatedly tried to stop the
sex trade, but the prostitutes always emerge again after each sporadic raid. He said
work on the sports center cannot commence yet because the administration still
needs to acquire another 1.6 hectares of land.
Meanwhile, part of Boker's vacant land appears to have become a temporary rubbish
dump, like so many other vacant lots in the city.
Embarrassingly for the mayor, public ordinance officials and other security officials are
often to be found in Boker, not trying to stop vice or littering, but instead extorting
money from locals.
"Normally they just for a private donation," Anjas, a local high school student, was
quoted as saying by detikcom. "If it's not handed over, then there will be a fight," he
added.
Tuesday's grenade attack wasn't the first in the area. On February 11, 2000,
unidentified attackers on a motorbike threw a grenade into the brothel complex,
injuring 12 people, including members of the security forces.
Forensics police came to Boker on Wednesday to search for any more grenades
possibly concealed in the area. They didn't find any. Three regular police designed to
guard the scene of the crime took shelter under a stall when rain started falling.
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