T

he Jakarta Police detained dozens of people after a violent clash between two groups erupted on Jl. Arjuna Raya in Duri Kepa, West Jakarta, on Friday.

“We detained 81 individuals, all of whom are still being questioned,” Jakarta Police chief detective Sr. Comr. Gatot Edi Pramono said.

An official Jakarta Police report said that one public minibus and three motorcycles were attacked and set on fire during the clash.

The report also said that forced eviction due to a land dispute may have been the reason behind the clash.

Before the clash, a number of men visited the residents of a crowded housing complex in Kampung Guji, Duri Kepa. The residents believed that the men had been sent by developers to evict people.

“They arrived in two minibuses, four motorcycles and a car,” an eyewitness, Sugandi, said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

When local residents asked why they had come to the neighborhood, they replied that it was to remove residents on a plot of land in Duri Kepa subdistrict.

The residents then clashed with the group, driving them out of the neighborhood.

“Since they were outnumbered, some of the people fled,” said Sugandi.

The police deployed three fire engines to extinguish the fires engulfing the minibus and motor-cycles.

Hundreds of police officers from the West Jakarta Police and Kebon Jeruk Police are still guarding the area after the clash.

The city administration has been facing constant trouble due to land disputes.

In September, protesters in Cakung, East Jakarta, turned out in large numbers to protest bullying by public order officers who tried to evict residents of Kampung Sawah from their neighborhood.

The Cakung residents staged the protest to resist efforts by East Jakarta Public Order officers to evict them from their homes and land that they had occupied for years.

In February, three people were arrested for vandalism when the police dispersed a rally staged by residents of Rawasari, Central Jakarta, to protest the development of an apartment block in the subdistrict.

Hundreds of Rawasari residents evicted from the land protested the property being built on the 5,000-square-meter plot, which they claimed they had occupied for many years.

— JP/Hans David Tampubolon