Cops unable to solve bomb hoaxes
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Employees working in the Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) Plaza on Jl. M.H. Thamrin, Central Java rushed out of their office last Thursday, seconds after Dedi Junaedi received a call saying that a bomb was about to explode.
Dedi, a BII customer service staff, said a woman called up at around 14:45 that a bomb had been placed in the building and would explode shortly.
The news spread out very rapidly, with employees screaming and rushing out of their offices.
An antibomb squad from the Jakarta Police, who arrived shortly after, searched the building but found nothing suspicious. They then declared the building bomb-free after an hour of intensive search.
Earlier on that same day, a similar hoax took place at Wisma Manulife on Jl. Pegangsaan Timur, Central Jakarta. A man called up the building at around 12:25 p.m., saying that he had placed a bomb at the back of the building.
An antibomb squad swept the building, but found nothing. After a thorough investigation, they declared the area free from bomb.
Bomb hoaxes have continued to plaque the capital in past few years, with police finding themselves powerless to trace the culprits.
At least five bomb hoaxes were reportedly received by office buildings, school, hotel and malls last week.
Police said they have received hundreds of bomb hoax calls from the public informing since last year and had managed to arrest only one, a love-struck woman who wanted to prevent her security guard boyfriend from going home in Central Jakarta.
Erlangga Masdiana, a criminologist of the University of Indonesia, said that unless the police managed to arrest the perpetrators, bomb hoaxes would continue to beleaguer the capital, where two major terrorists attacks killed dozens of people in 2002 and 2004 respectively.
"People notice that many perpetrators can walk free after making bomb hoaxes so they tend to copy their actions. If the police can arrest them and deal with them sternly, than it will create a deterrent effect," he told The Jakarta Post.
Arresting the perpetrators, however, has proven to be very difficult as police were completely clueless about the culprits.
Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said recently that they found it difficult arresting the culprits due to lack of cooperation from cellular provider firms to track down the callers or SMS senders.
He also said that unless prepaid card numbers are registered, police would continue to have difficulties in arresting bomb hoax perpetrators.
The country's first and deadliest terrorist attack, killing over 200 people Bali in October 2001, is believed to have been triggered by a cellular phone.
The government has given cellular telephone operators until April to register prepaid numbers. Some companies, however, have complained that they had difficulties registering numbers now in the hands of their customers.
Telecommunication and multimedia expert R.M. Roy Suryo said that the police simply could not do anything to trace the callers or the short message service (SMS) senders without any clue on the identity and location of the perpetrators.
"All of the callers or senders are likely to have used the prepaid numbers, which they threw away shortly after making the bomb hoax call. As such, there is no way that the police can trace them," he told the Post.
Police's job was made difficult by the fact that no law required cellular provider firms to cooperate with the police, Roy said.
He said that the firms were reluctant to share information with the police as it would violate their customers' privacy.
Roy and Erlangga agreed that the only way to stop bomb hoaxes was to register the prepaid numbers as soon as possible.
"I think consumers still have privacy if there is a clear regulation on how far police can exercise their authorities," said Roy.