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hristopher Melky Tanujaya, 16, should have left for Australia on Wednesday, where he would have decided whether to study at the University of Sydney or the University of Queensland.

But the silver medal winner at the 2009 National Science Olympiad never had the chance to make that decision. His life was cut short by an assailant who stabbed him near a Transjakarta bus shelter in Penjari-ngan, North Jakarta.

Christopher was traveling home from a get-together held by fellow scholarship grantees in Singapore on Monday when the attack happened.

Soon after graduating from junior high in Pluit, North Jakarta, Christopher received a scholarship to continue his high school education at Saint Joseph’s School in Singapore on the merit of his academic records.

He won a silver medal for math at the olympiad in 2009 and likely had a bright future in academia.

Christopher’s mother, Norma Susilowati, 50, said she could not understand why anyone would have wanted to kill her son, saying that he had no enemies.

The boy’s uncle, Rudi Tanujaya, suspected that somebody might have cooked up a plot to kill Christopher out of vengeance.

“The motive could have been payback because none of his belongings were stolen. We found his cell phone and everything was still in place,” Rudi said as quoted by kompas.com.

Police in North Jakarta said that they had yet to find any clues that could reveal the motive behind
the murder.

North Jakarta Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Irwan Anwar said that investigators were now scouring through footage from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed near the crime scene.

Irwan also said that investigators had questioned several witnesses from the crime scene and established a description of Christopher’s assailant.

“Some witnesses said that once the victim arrived at the busway station, near state elementary school SDN 01 Pagi Pluit, the suspect stabbed him. They said that the assailant had wavy hair,” Irwan said.

Christopher is the latest example of a city youth perishing on Jakarta’s streets.

In August, Livia Pavita Soelistio, a student at the Bina Nusantara (Binus) University, was found dead in Cisauk after she was raped and killed.

Livia went missing after she left her home for the campus in West Jakarta on Aug. 16. The police have arrested four suspects in the case.

In March, Amanda Dewi Setiawan, a resident of Taman Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, and a student at IPEKA International Christian High School, died on her birthday after residents found her unconscious with stab wounds to her stomach on the side of a road in Taman Meruya Ilir, West Jakarta.