A mob of protestors including Islamic students torched and vandalised six suspected brothels and injured four people during a rampage at an Indonesian hill resort, police and reports said.
The mob of up to 150 people, many of them students from a local Islamic boarding school, late Saturday ransacked four hotels and burnt two houses allegedly used as brothels in Cisarua, one of the chain of hill towns just south of Jakarta where residents of the capital regularly head for weekends.
Police said they arrested 41 people over the raid, and have charged 29. The other 12 were released for lack of evidence. "Those 29 were directly involved in the riot and destruction. We've categorised them as the perpetrators," regional police chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Mochamad Taufik told AFP. "Among them are students from the local pesantren [Islamic boarding school] and people who live near the pesantren," Taufik said.
The attackers were armed with sticks and petrol bombs, and also hurled rocks at the alleged brothels. Four people suffered serious head injuries after being hit with rocks, the Media Indonesia daily reported.
On Sunday night another mob of 300 surrounded the Cisarua police station, where the detainees were being held, smashing windows and police cars. Tempers flared when police questioned three kiais (traditional Islamic scholars) who had gone to ask about the detainees, Taufik said. "We needed information from the kiais. The mob thought we were detaining the kiais," Taufik said.
Police were forced to close the main highway for two hours to prevent commuters getting caught up in the trouble, he added. Sunday night traffic on the narrow two-lane thoroughfare, usually choked with weekend commuters, came to a standstill for almost two hours, the Media Indonesia daily reported.
The Puncak hills area around Cisarua, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Jakarta, has been the site of frequent mob attacks on nightspots and suspected brothels. Prostitution is illegal in Indonesia but flourishes in cities and holiday areas.