Surabaya – Hundreds of people slashed teak trees at the Parengan forest and wrecked three police cars in Tuban district, west of here Tuesday, following the arrest of 149 men suspected of stealing teak logs.

The mobs, armed with Molotov cocktails, timber saws, short machetes and wooden sticks, attacked the police cars which were patrolling the teak forest, deputy chief of the Bojonegoro district police, Lt Col Rahardjo, told ANTARA Wednesday. No one was hurt in the incident but tens of people living in Tuban fled their homes.

Some 66 people have been arrested over the attack and 333 M3 teak logs, 3 Molotov cocktails, and a number of timber saws and short machetes have been confiscated, Rahardjo said.

Teak plantations, with a history of more than a hundred years in this country, are currently managed by state-owned companies that inherited them from Dutch companies.

Meanwhile head of Tanggulangin village, Wanoto, said tens of people fled for Central Java and Jakarta, fearing they would be arrested for keeping teak logs without proper documents. "(After the change in government), many people here joined the looting of timber, something which they never did during the previous administration," Wanoto said.

He said the houses were left unlocked, enabling the police to retrieve the stolen logs which they kept in their houses or buried in their yards.