TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian National Police released its latest daily record of the Ketupat Operation, an annual program to safeguard and escort this year’s Eid al-Fitr homecoming traffic, which revealed that there have been 318 road accidents up to June 9.

Despite the seemingly high number, it is in fact 65 percent less than last year’s Ketupat Operation that saw 919 road accidents in the same duration of time.

“69 casualties, 28 people injured, and 258 minor injuries,” said National Police spokesman Grand Comm. Yusri Yunus in a press release on June 10.

The main cause of the accidents, Yusri stated, is dominated by the lack of awareness upon operating vehicular activities. Meanwhile, police say that the time of accidents often take place from 09:00 up to 12:00 Indonesian Western Time. There were 42 accidents within the three hour time-frame.

“Other than that, the road accidents were dominated by motorcyclists with 232 occurrences. This means artery roads need improved monitoring,” said Yusri.

The annual Ketupat police operation has commenced for 18 days since June 7, up to June 24. Police and the National Armed Forces (TNI) mobilized 177,000 combined members in the 2018 operation Ketupat across Indonesia.

ANDITA RAHMA