Fire engulfs Tanjung Gusta Prison, hundreds of prisoners flee

The North Sumatra police said 200 prisoners had managed to flee incarceration at Tanjung Gusta Prison in Medan due to a fire that devastated the facility on Thursday night.

The fire was allegedly started by inmates around 7 p.m., who were angered by an outage of water and electricity at the prison.

Hundreds of police officers, helped by local residents, guarded the surrounding area to catch the escaping inmates.

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Ronny F. Sompie said the police had deployed personnel from the North Sumatera Police, the Medan Police and local police precincts to secure the scene.

'€œWe are focusing on capturing the inmates. The North Sumatera Police'€™s Mobile Brigade [Brimob], Sabhara rapid response unit, crime and intelligence unit are now at the
location,'€ he said.

Ronny said that to date 12 terrorist convicts had been detained but gave no further details.

North Sumatra police chief Insp. Gen. Syarief Gunawan said the police had managed to arrest 10 inmates '€” one was a terrorist convict, as quoted by tribunnews.com.(hrl/dic)