Tens of illegal buildings located under flyover on Jalan Cikini 6, Menteng, Central Jakarta, were demolished by joint personnel from Satpol PP and PT KAI, Saturday (11/1). The demolition runs smoothly without protest from the building owners.

According to the agreement between Jakarta Provincial Government and PT KAI, all illegal buildings stood atop railway tracks must be sterilized

Based on beritajakarta.com observations, the building owners could only resigned seeing the officers moved out stuffs like chairs, tables, and cabinets from the buildings, and a backhoe demolished their buildings. They admitted had occupied prohibited land belongs to PT KAI and ignored warnings.

“This demolition is a continuation of previous demolition in Jayakarta Station. Most of the illegal buildings here were utilized as used goods storage,” said PT KAI Daops I spokesman Agus Komarudin.

According to Komarudin, PT KAI owns land up to 12 meters from the railway tracks which supposed to be sterile from buildings. But in reality, almost all of PT KAI’s lands within Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi) are not sterile from buildings.

The presence of those buildings is clearly disturbing train mechanics when doing maintenance work of railway tracks. Moreover, high voltage cables above the railway tracks could endanger the people living underneath.

“This area will be restored its function as a green belt,” he asserted.

Meanwhile, Head of Operational Section for Central Jakarta Satpol PP, Maruli Sijabat, told that at least 70 Satpol PP personnel were deployed to assist PT KAI’s personnel in the amount of 150 people.

“According to the agreement between Jakarta Provincial Government and PT KAI, all illegal buildings stood atop railway tracks must be sterilized,” he stated.