Homemade bomb rocks hospital in Yogyakarta
YOGYAKARTA (JP): An explosion jolted the state-run Dr. Sardjito General Hospital here at around 1 a.m. on Tuesday, injuring a security guard and damaging a lavatory near the hospital's morgue
The explosion caused a hole measuring about 35 centimeter long 25 cm wide and 7.5 cm deep in the lavatory's floor.
Waridjan, a 55-year-old Army warrant officer who is chief of the hospital's security guard unit suffered eye injuries when glass fragments from the lavatory's window hit his eyes. The explosion has made him partially deaf.
He has been placed in the intensive care unit. His right arm was also injured in the explosion.
Beside Waridjan, two other hospital security guards, Triyono and Giman, a visitor Dwi Purwati, and three other people are being questioned by the police over the explosion.
Supt. Ahmad Riharto, who led the forensic team examining the explosion, said he was not yet able to determine the type of explosive used but was certain it was handmade. He said there was a strong smell of sulfur at the blast site.
The forensic team also found a piece of damaged battery, believed to have been used to trigger the bomb.
"Judging from the explosion, I can say that the bomb was made by someone who has adequate knowledge in explosives," said Ahmad.
The Yogyakarta Police's Mobile Brigade bomb squad assumed, however, that the chemicals used in the bomb are the same as that used in firecrackers.
"Therefore, I am certain there are only a few people behind the bombing," said Yogyakarta Police chief Brig. Gen. Logan Siagian.
"A group of people who do not want peace to exist in the country could be behind this," he added.
According to Logan, forensic laboratory tests would be conducted soon with help from the Central Java Police Forensic Laboratory in Semarang.
Last Wednesday two active handmade bombs were found on a road in Masahan area in Trirenggo village in the regency of Bantul. Another bomb was found in a city bus last Friday after the Panti Rapih Catholic Hospital received bomb threats over the telephone.
The story
Waridjan said that at 12:45 p.m. the hospital's emergency unit informed him that a strange object, suspected to be a handmade bomb, had been found in a lavatory close to the morgue
Accompanied by the two fellow security guards, Waridjan went to the lavatory to investigate.
He said he saw a tube resembling a thermos flask of about 30cm long in a corner of the lavatory. "The object was wrapped in newspaper and had a blue plastic cap on it."
Curious on whether it was a bomb, Waridjan picked a fist-sized stone and threw it at the object. "I threw it twice but missed. I then used a wooden stick to move it. The object rolled and then a deafening sound was heard."
"I quickly lied on the floor with my face down. Thank God I'm still alive. The explosion has made me partially deaf," Waridjan told The Jakarta Post from the hospital.
In a separate interview, Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X said there were people who were creating unrest in Yogyakarta.
He said two weeks ago, when he was in Jakarta, he was informed that three provocateurs from Banyuwangi (East Java) and 10 others from Jakarta had been sent to Yogyakarta to create chaos.
"I reported what I heard to the Yogyakarta Police," he said, adding that four days later bombs were discovered on the road in Bantul and in a city bus. (swa)