Police in the North Sumatra capital of Medan have arrested a 35-year-old man, identified as Syahputra, who is suspected of sexually harrassing a high-school student after being caught groping her breasts on video.
The video, reportedly taken on April 19 on Medan’s Jalan Talaud, shows Syahputra making a u-turn on his motorcycle to anticipate a couple of high school girls walking towards him on the sidewalk. When they were close enough, he quickly groped the breasts of one unsuspecting girl before driving away.
After the video went viral, the Medan City Police managed to track down and arrest Syahputra at 2 am this morning at the restaurant where he worked. According to the police, Syahputra admitted that the high school girl was not his only groping victim.
“The suspect confessed to having sexually harassed women 7 times,” said AKBP Putu Yudha Prawira, head of the Crime Investigations Unit at the Medan City Police, as quoted by Detik today.
It’s not yet clear what charges Syahputra will face.
In January, a woman in Jakarta’s satellite city of Depok similarly had her breasts groped by a random motorcyclist when she was walking alone on a quiet alleyway. In an interview with Coconuts, the victim spoke about her difficulties getting the police to act on her case, which they only took seriously after she made the CCTV footage of the sexual assault go viral online. The motorcyclist was arrested and charged with indecency under the KUHP (Criminal Code), which is punishable by up to 2 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.
Social media approval seems to be of importance to the Medan City Police as well following their arrest of Syaputra.
“The capture of the suspect, who is believed to have some sort of disorder, led to positive response from the people of Medan through social media,” Putu said.
Reader Interactions