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Young female gang leader wanted over deadly brawl
Police are hunting for a 16-year-old girl they suspect of orchestrating a recent deadly street brawl involving teenagers in Tangerang, Banten, which claimed one life
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span>Police are hunting for a 16-year-old girl they suspect of orchestrating a recent deadly street brawl involving teenagers in Tangerang, Banten, which claimed one life.
They have accused the girl of arranging a clash between two groups of local teenagers in Sepatan subdistrict through Instagram.
The dead victim was a 19-year-old high-school student police identified only as ARA. He died in hospital from stab wounds, an autopsy showed, and his relatives demanded that the authorities hunt down all the perpetrators.
About 20 people were allegedly involved in the clash, which occurred at the end of the Idul Fitri holidays. The gangs were identified as Kutabumi aka Syaraf 34 and Cadas. Each mobilized 10 members and ARA was from the Cadas gang.
Police detained six teenagers for using sharp weapons in the brawl while eight minors who had not armed themselves were only required to report to a police station. The 16-year-old girl, the only female in the gangs, is among five people aged between 16 and 18 years on the police’s list of fugitives.
None of them have been named suspects yet, according to Sepatan Police chief, Adj. Comr. I Gusti Moh. Sugiharto.
“We can only name any suspects after those on the loose have been caught because we believe that they are the main perpetrators,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Police believe the 16-year-old girl played a central role in the incident. They claim she was the one who managed her gang’s Instagram account and decided which rival gang to target. She allegedly challenged Cadas, which is also based in Sepatan, to a fight in a street in front of the local state elementary school, SDN 2 Karet, at about 3:30 a.m. on June 9.
“Her intention remains unclear,” Sugiharto said, adding that he believed the 16-year-old girl meant to assert her group’s right to exist.
Police have sketchy information about the 16-year-old girl beyond the fact that she dropped out of a vocational high school last year and that she lived with her grandmother. Police records show that she had been involved in other street brawls before.
The recent fatality in the communal clash took police by surprise. Sugiharto said it was the first fatal incident in his area of jurisdiction over the last couple of years.
“Brawls occur here sometimes, usually involving students from different schools, and no one had been killed,” he said, adding that he had not heard anything about the Syaraf 34 or Cadas gangs before. (das)
