Dozens were injured Saturday following a massive brawl between two groups of drivers of public minivans on Jl. Daan Mogot in Tangerang, Banten.
The brawl cleared after hundreds of police officers arrived, firing repeated warning shots, and left several minivans in serious damage.
The brawl was an escalation of a number of previous fights between drivers involved in a turf war.
There are two groups of drivers serving the route between Jakarta and Tangerang. One group say they have the rights to the route because their public minivans have been registered with the administration and have yellow registration plates.
The other group comprise unregistered vehicle drivers who operate private vehicles, with conventional black plates.
Rusli, 38, a registered public minivan driver, said the unregistered group had reduced his daily income because they ply the same routes each day.
"We have to compete for passengers ... The unregistered minivans make the competition tougher," he said.
H. Madi, 49, chairman of the unregistered minivan drivers association asked the related agencies to handle the case quickly.
"With the prolonged conflicts we cannot earn money. We have worked as minivan drivers for more than 10 years -- long before the administration issued licenses for registered minivans. Why now should they regard us as the enemy?" Madi asked.
He said the drivers of unregistered public minivans would not know how to feed their families if the conflicts continued.
Rumors about the brawl began to spread on Friday, saying that two trucks carrying drivers of registered public minivans would attack their competitors at Kebon Besar, in Tangerang. However nothing happened that day.
On Saturday morning, however, drivers from the unregistered group held a strike, parking their vans along the main road and marching together to Tangerang Police headquarters.
On the way, Tangerang traffic police chief Insp. Tommy Wibisono intercepted the drivers and asked them to lodge their complaints with the municipal transportation agency.
But the drivers chose to continue their rally to the police office.
When they arrived at Kebon Besar, however, dozens of registered drivers were waiting and hurled rocks at them.
The unregistered group retaliated and dozens were injured, but none of the injured drivers were taken to hospital.
Chairman of the Tangerang chapter of Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda), Syamsudin, said the conflict was perpetuated because the local administration had been indecisive.
He called on the administration to accomodate the unregistered public minivans and to register them.
"I think this is the only solution. Otherwise the conflicts will continue," he said.
Tangerang municipal transportation agency head Erlan Rusnarlan said the agency would soon discuss possible solutions to the problem of unregistered public minivans with related parties including Organda, the police and the driver associations.
"I cannot decide whether to give permits to the unregistered public minivans myself ... so we need to discuss this further at a meeting next week," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment