Cops unable to solve bomb hoaxes

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.