Scene of the crime: An aerial view of the scene after a blast at a district police station, that according to authorities was a suicide bombing, in Bandung, West Java province. — Reuters
A RELIGIOUS militant and convicted bomb-maker who was released from prison last year blew himself up at a police station on Indonesia’s main island of Java, killing an officer and wounding 11 people, officials said.
The attacker entered the Astana Anyar police station yesterday with a motorcycle and detonated one of two bombs he was carrying as police were lining up for a morning assembly, said Bandung city Police Chief Aswin Sipayung.
The other explosive was defused.
A video that circulated on social media showed body parts near the damaged lobby of the police station, which was engulfed in white smoke as people ran out of the building.
Food vendor Herdi Hardiansyah said he was preparing meals behind the station when a loud bang shocked him.
He saw a police officer whom he recognised as one of his customers covered in blood, being carried on a motorcycle by two other officers to a hospital. He later learned the officer died. Ten others and a civilian were wounded.
National Police Chief Gen Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters when he visited the station yesterday afternoon that the attacker was believed to have been a member of the militant organisation Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, or JAD, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and was responsible for other deadly suicide bombings in Indonesia.
Looking for answers: Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System officers investigating the scene of the blast at a district police station in Bandung, West Java province. — Reuters
He said police identified the man as Agus Sujatno, also known by his alias Abu Muslim.
He was released from the Nusakambangan prison island last year after completing a four-year sentence on charges of terrorist funding and making explosives that were used in a 2017 attack on a municipal building also in Bandung, the capital of West Java province.
JAD was designated a terrorist organisation by the US in 2017.
Sujatno was still on police “red” lists of militant convicts after being freed from prison because of his rejection of the government’s deradicalisation programme, Prabowo said.
“He was still difficult to talk to, and tended to avoid the (deradicalisation) process,” Prabowo said.
Prabowo said he ordered police task force units and the counterterrorism squad to investigate the attack and find other possible culprits.
West Java Police Chief Suntana, who uses one name, said a paper taped to the perpetrator’s motorbike was recovered with the words, “Criminal code is the law of infidels, let’s fight the satanic law enforcers.”
Indonesia’s Parliament on Tuesday passed a new criminal code that bans sex outside of marriage and insulting the president and state institutions.
The current penal code is a Dutch colonial legacy.
A revised code was poised for passage in 2019, but President Joko Widodo urged lawmakers to delay a vote amid mounting public criticism that led to nationwide protests as opponents said it contained articles that discriminated against minorities and that the legislative process lacked transparency.
Indonesia has battled militants since bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
Attacks aimed at foreigners have largely been replaced in recent years with smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, police and anti-terrorism forces and people who militants consider infidels.
In 2019, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a busy police station in Medan, Indonesia’s third-largest city, wounding at least six people.
In May 2018, two families carried out a series of suicide bombings on churches in the city of Surabaya, killing a dozen people including two young girls whose parents had involved them in one of the attacks. Police said the father was the leader of a local affiliate of Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Anshorut Daulah.
Last year, two attackers believed to be members of JAD blew themselves up outside a packed Roman Catholic cathedral during a Palm Sunday Mass on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing the two attackers and wounding at least 20 people. — AP
