The Bandung Police yesterday arrested a 19-year-old, identified by his initials MAG, after he allegedly attacked eight strangers in a random stabbing spree, killing one of them.
MAG carried out the attack on a bridge in the Bandung Kulon district at around 5pm, using three knives to stab random victims. His spree ended when he became the target of an angry mob.
“The suspect was beaten up and given [mob] justice by locals. So we can’t interrogate him yet,” said AKBP M Joni, head of Bandung Police’s Crime Investigation Unit, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
One victim, identified as 64-year-old AOS, died after receiving two wounds to his chest. The other seven were taken to ERs in several hospitals in Bandung.
The police do not yet know what drove MAG to go on the stabbing spree, but they believe he suffers from a mental illness and will carry out a psychiatric evaluation on him.
Coincidentally, this is not the only stabbing incident to occur in Indonesia in the past couple of days. Also yesterday, seven primary schoolchildren were attacked in a stabbing spree in East Nusa Tenggara before the suspect was lynched by a mob, and a taxi driver in Jakarta was stabbed with a sickle by muggers before he ran one of them down with his taxi. On Monday, a teenager in Yogyakarta also died after being stabbed in the stomach.
Reader Interactions