MAN 3 Padang Student Made Firecrackers After Being Bullied, Says Ministry Official

Director General of Islamic Education at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Amien Suyitno, has clarified that a student at MAN 3 Padang, West Sumatra, was not carrying out a bomb threat. He explained that the student was initially a victim of bullying, which ultimately led him to independently learn how to make firecrackers. Suyitno received a report from the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in West Sumatra confirming that the student had experienced bullying. “According to the report I received, this happened because the perpetrator felt marginalised due to being bullied and eventually made a sort of firecracker based on instructions from YouTube,” Suyitno said at MAN 19 South Jakarta on Thursday (16/5). The Ministry of Religious Affairs’ next step is to provide education and assistance to the student concerned and the school environment. He assessed that the case of the MAN 3 Padang student assembling firecrackers as a result of being a bullying victim demonstrates the impact of social media on children’s education. “This serves as a sign that while we have always emphasised the importance of anti-violence, it is equally important to prevent violence in the digital world or on social media, because in cases like this, the assembly of dangerous materials was not learned through conventional means,” he concluded. A preliminary police investigation found that the motive stemmed from bullying experienced by the perpetrator.