Indonesian police probe bondage mummification case at Surabaya university after #gilangbungkus goes viral
- A student at Airlangga University has been accused of sexually assaulting some 15 people after tricking them into being wrapped up like mummies
- He told his victims the act was part of his academic research for his thesis on ‘wrappings’
The alleged perpetrator, Gilang, is accused of inviting other students from Airlangga University (Unair) to his house, asking them to take off their clothes and wrapping them in jarik, a traditional Javanese cloth.
In some cases he allegedly asked friends to wrap each other before filming the process and sending the footage to him. Photos circulated on social media showed the victims looking like pocong, or shroud ghosts. In Muslim burials, cloth is usually used to wrap the dead before they are buried.
English-language daily The Jakarta Post, in reporting on the episode, described what happened as a fetish act known as “bondage mummification”.
The university on Monday interviewed the families of the students, 15 of whom have come forward so far.
Unair help centre coordinator Liestyaningsih Dwi Dayanti said the university’s ethics commission team had yet to determine whether to expel Gilang, but “hopefully a decision will be made tomorrow”.