Dorm occupants not known to locals

Dorm occupants not known to locals

JAKARTA (JP): The occupants of the Iskandar Muda Aceh student
dormitory were strangers to the neighborhood, said the
neighborhood head and other locals on Friday.

Most of the dorm occupants did not talk to their neighbors and
led a reclusive life inside the house, but they looked nice and
religious, several residents said from the Guntur subdistrict of
Setiabudi, where a powerful bomb blast killed two people and
injured two others the day before.

The head of the neighborhood, Sri Sukarna, said none of the
occupants were students. And while the police said there were 18
people living in the 10-room house, Sukarna said only five were
registered as residents: Salahudin Ahmad, 34, M. Kasim Yusuf, 54,
Rusli M. Juned, 40, Irwan, 28 and Taufik Abdullah, 31. They were
all from Aceh, and were jobless.

"As far as I know, only Taufik, who was in charge of the
dormitory, was once a student. But now he is active in music,"
she told The Jakarta Post.

She said that since Taufik was unemployed, she offered him a
job as the secretary of the subdistrict's poverty alleviation
program. He agreed but the program has not started yet.

"The dormitory was often empty in the morning when I passed by
on my way to the market. So it was difficult for me to monitor
the activities inside," she said, adding that the guests often
came in the evening.

She said the dormitory also functioned as a shelter for
visiting Acehnese who stayed in the city for several days. She
said she had asked Taufik to register the guests.

"But despite my repeated warnings, Taufik never reported who
came and stayed there," she said, adding that some guests at the
dormitory would stare at her suspiciously.

However, she said, all its occupants and guests had good
manners, did not make any trouble with the locals and were also
religious.

"That's why I was shocked when I heard the bomb exploded
there. I don't understand why Taufik let his colleagues take
bombs into the dorm," she said.

Head of Guntur subdistrict Usman said the dormitory, which was
built in 1950 on 380 square meters, had been used to house
Acehnese students for the past 20 years.

He said he could not list the people who lived in the
dormitory because the occupants continuously came and went from
year to year.

A neighbor, Sahroni, 50 said it was difficult to know for sure
who lived there since most of them did not like mixing with
others.

"I saw many guests go in and leave the dormitory almost every
night. But I did not know exactly what their activities were in
there," he said.

Another neighbor Slamet, 42, said he and some other residents
recently suspected that the dormitory was being used for drug
trafficking.

"Up until the blast, we were still watching the occupants'
activities but were unable to see any indications of drug dealing
or drug abuse," he said.

Parwi, who sells chicken noodles 15 meters from the dorm, said
the head of the community had parked his old Honda Civic sedan in
the front yard of the house. He was fixing the car when the bomb
exploded and was hospitalized for his injuries, Parwi said.

"Thank God, the blast did not damage other houses around the
dormitory," he said.(01)