Live ammo found at Islamiyah school

Live ammo found at Islamiyah school

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two construction workers renovating the Islamiyah Foundation
school building in Ciputat, Tangerang, found 98 live bullets in
the ceiling on Wednesday afternoon.

The workers, Mukodim and Siswanto, discovered a moldy military
backpack, along with several children's books, behind a ceiling
panel in a teachers' lounge. When they opened the backpack, they
found the bullets inside.

Sugito, the school's security guard, reported the discovery to
the Ciputat Police on Thursday.

"We were busy distributing the students' grade cards. That's
why we didn't report it until today," he said.

A police report on the incident said the bullets were for .45
and .22 caliber FN pistols.

Ciputat Police chief Adj. Comr. Zulpan H. Sik declined to
comment on the matter when contacted through his cellular phone.

The discovery shocked teachers at the school, some of whom
have been working in the room for five years.

"I started to shake when I heard about the bullets, thinking
that they were above our heads all this time. I was like, 'Oh my
God,'" Tin Martini, head of the education department at the
foundation, said on Thursday.

"Before the teachers began to use this room, it was a
classroom for junior high school students," she said.

The Islamiyah Foundation -- which comprises Islamic junior
high schools and high schools, public junior high schools and
high schools, and an economics college -- began the renovation
work on Dec. 29.

About 2,500 students attend classes at the building every day.

"The foundation bought this building in 1998 from a family
that used to own a bakery. People in the neighborhood said the
father of the owner was a member of the military police. Maybe
the bullets belonged to the family," Sugito said.