It happened last November. I was out of town, and the children were asleep. The thieves jumped over the fence and pushed the motorbike and the car out without making a sound.' Rosmiati, who like most Indonesians goes by one name, said that several of her neighbours in the middle-class south Jakarta suburb of Bintaro had also been burgled in the recent past, and that she could no longer say the area was safe.
'But, at least I am grateful that my children were unharmed,' she said.
Others have not been so lucky.
A retired, middle-ranking navy officer in North Jakarta was killed by burglars on December 30. The day before, residents in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, woke up to the discovery of a headless female body in a rice field near their homes.
Seven murders involving mutilation were reported in the city last year, most of them the work of serial killer Verry Idham Henyansyah, also known as Ryan.
Gruesome crime stories are often splashed across the front pages of the city's tabloids, adding to a growing sense that Jakarta is not as safe as it once was.
Statistics reinforce this feeling.
