Unas students demand unconditional release of arrested peers

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Hundreds of National University (Unas) students came to the South Jakarta municipal police office on Tuesday to demand the unconditional release of their friends detained following last week`s clash with police officers.The students unfurled banners urging police to set their friends free.While the students were staging their rally, hundreds of police officers watched from inside their office. Last Saturday, hundreds of Unas students also staged a rally outside the police office to voice their objections to any form of hoodlumism by police officers. More than 100 people were arrested following the clash at the Unas campus at the weekend.The police said they had made the arrests because the protesters had resorted to violence.Unas rector Umar Basalim said at a meeting with House Speaker Agung Laksono on Monday he strongly believed that outsiders had infiltrated into the student protest that prompted the police to search the campus and clash with the protesting students.Quoting the results of an investigation conducted by the university, he said 10 of those arrested by police were not Unas students.Previously, the head of the public relations division at the Indonesian Police Headquarters, Insp Gen Abubakar Nataprawira, said a total of 31 people had been named suspects in the case.(*)