Hangga Brata & Fitri – Protests against police brutality in Sape on Sumbawa Island over the weekend continued in several cities on Tuesday, with some of them leading to clashes with police.

In Sukoharjo, Central Java, dozens of students clashed with police as they tried to take a civil servant hostage.

The demonstrators, from Muhammadiyah University, attacked police after the law enforcers tried to prevent the protestors from forcing a civil servant out of an office car that the students had halted at a road block they had set up. The attack was sparked after one of the police officers hit a student in the tussle.

Police then forcefully disbanded the protesters and arrested 15 of the students, according to one of the student leaders, Heri. The police declined comment, and witnesses said the 15 students were being detained for questioning at the Sukoharjo District Police headquarters.

The demonstrators, who had called for the National Police chief to intervene in settling the case of at least two shooting deaths on Saturday in Sape, West Nusa Tenggara, later threatened to hold a larger protest if their 15 peers were not released soon.

In Sape's Bima district, some 800 students calling themselves the "People's Front Against Mining" held a rally in front of the district office.

While some student leaders were busy haranguing the crowd, an object was thrown from the group of students toward officials inside the compound, prompting some of the police to advance on the students. More police came after the students tried to overpower the few initial officers who had gone after the crowd.

Warning shots were fired and tear gas canisters were thrown. Witnesses said two of the students were arrested.

In Mataram, the capital of West Nusa Tenggara, hundreds of students from two separate groups took to the streets to protest the violence in Sape. As some 700 protesters marched toward the provincial legislative building, stones began to fly from within the ranks after what some thought was a provocation by a plainclothes police intelligence officer.

It was not immediately clear what the provocation was. "There was someone trying to provoke the students, and this made them angry and [they] accused the individual of being police intelligence," said Nuraini, one of the protestors who was trying to calm down his fellow marchers.

At the legislative building, no lawmakers came out to meet the protesters, with a staffer saying they were in recess and were all out of town visiting their constituencies.

The students demanded the dismissal of the Bima district chief, Ferry Zulkarnain, and the heads of the national, provincial and district police. Their demands included a withdrawal of troops deployed in Sape.

The students also called for the immediate release of some 47 people arrested by police following Saturday's violence. "If these demands are not met soon, there will be a much larger mass that will conduct protests until the demands are met," said Marzuki, one of the leaders of the protest.