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.