Lengkong incident

In the afternoon of 25 January 1946, a group of newly enrolled Indonesian Military Academy cadets in Tangerang led by Major Daan Mogot went to a Japanese base in Lengkong, in what is today South Tangerang, in order to discuss disarmament of the Japanese troops and acquire their weapons.[1] The negotiations, which began with the transfer of some Gurkha prisoners of war, initially went well and the cadets began collecting the weapons, when a shot was fired – the culprit was unknown, with an account describing one of the Gurkhas having accidentally fired the weapon and another describing one of the cadets' weapons firing on accident.[2]

After the shot, Japanese soldiers retook the seized weapons and began attacking the cadets.[3] In the ensuing shootout, 33 cadets and 3 of their officers, including Daan Mogot, were killed.[4] The Indonesian Army later threatened to send in soldiers to Lengkong, prompting the Japanese garrison to surrender.[2]

The dead cadets and officers were buried in a nearby forest, though they were later reburied on a plot of land near Tangerang's regimental headquarters, and the burial site is today known as the Cadet Heroes' Cemetery (Indonesian: Taman Makam Pahlawan Taruna).[3] A monument was erected at the site of the incident in 1993, and in 2005 Army Chief of Staff Ryamizard Ryacudu set 25 January, the date of the incident, as a commemoration day for the Military Academy.[4]