Some details circulating on social media are not true, the police and child commission confirmed.
junior high school student -- identified only as Audrey -- in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, sustained serious injuries and landed up in hospital after at least three girls allegedly assaulted her over a boy.
The gory details of the alleged assault made the rounds on Twitter on Tuesday, inspiring a hashtag, #JusticeForAudrey, which was the number one trending topic. An online petition on change.org has garnered more than 385,000 signatures in about five hours as of Tuesday evening, in which the petitioner demanded the case should not to be settled out of court.
The hashtag and petition were in response to a rumor that the West Kalimantan Child Protection Commission (KKPAD) wanted Audrey's family to settle out of court.
Comr. M. Husni Ramli, the head of criminal investigation unit of the Pontianak Police, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that he had received a police report from the victim's parents about the alleged assault on their 15-year-old daughter.
“The [investigation] is ongoing. [Afterwards, we will] ask for medical records and then question the suspects,” Husni told the Post. The police might charge them with violating Article 80 on the child protection law on assaulting a minor.
According to the police report obtained by the Post, Audrey was picked up by a girl at her house on a motorbike on Friday. The two, who was followed by four unidentified girls also on motorbikes, then picked up her cousin, identified as P. The cousins and the five other girls then rode to an empty lot next to Jl. Sulawesi, Akcaya subdistrict, South Pontianak.
It turns out that the three girls had been waiting at the lot for them. The three then allegedly assault Audrey in front of her cousin. The girls reportedly banged Audrey’s head on the graveled asphalt, kicked her in the stomach and back, pulled her hair, and drenched her with water.
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