Jakarta residents have largely welcomed a new police-military campaign against violent street crime, after a wave of brazen motorbike muggings struck fear into Indonesia’s capital.

But rights advocates warn that deploying soldiers alongside police blurs a line between law enforcement and military power, reviving memories of extrajudicial killings in a country still haunted by its authoritarian past.

On May 15, Jakarta police announced the formation of a special, 24-hour joint patrol task force aimed at eradicating street robbers known as begal: a term commonly used for violent muggings, often carried out by motorbike-riding offenders.

The Begal Hunter Team, backed by the Jakarta Military Command (Kodam Jaya), had arrested 173 suspected offenders as of May 22, police said.

Jakarta police received 1,283 reports of street crime from May 1 to 22, with aggravated theft accounting for 651 cases, according to Police Grand Commissioner Iman Imanuddin, director of general crimes investigation at the Jakarta Metropolitan Police.

Iman said police were collaborating with the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), local governments, district and sector police, as well as “social media activists”, to reduce crime in the capital. He identified West Jakarta as the area most prone to begal, citing its “fairly heterogeneous population”.

Iman added that several suspects were shot in the legs for resisting arrest or trying to escape, including two recently detained in West Jakarta who allegedly carried out 190 robberies between December and May.