Jakarta – Indonesian police have been questioning witnesses to a bomb blast that ripped through a crowded market, injuring 53 people in a Christian neighbourhood of the religiously divided province of Maluku.
A Maluku legislator blamed Saturday's blast on extremist groups trying to destroy the Malino peace agreement, signed in February between warring Muslims and Christians.
The island province, 2,600 km east of Jakarta, has been wracked by three years of sectarian fighting that has killed 9,000 people.
Police spokesman Sgt Ariawan could not say who was behind the blast in the provincial capital Ambon, and no one has been arrested. At least six eyewitnesses were being questioned, he said.
Ambon was peaceful yesterday, although hundreds of security personnel were patrolling the explosion area, Kudamati, he said.
Witnesses were quoted as saying that they saw two young men place a large plastic bag inside a handcart. Minutes later, a bomb exploded.
The injured – which include 49 Christians and a year-old baby – were hospitalised, some in critical condition.
Mr John Mailoa, deputy chairman of the Maluku provincial legislature, blamed the blast on extremist groups from outside the province who are allowed to operate there with impunity. He did not name any group.
"Extremist groups that should have been expelled from the province in accord with the Malino agreement must be held responsible for this incident," The Jakarta Post quoted him as saying. "They are trying to revive the conflict."
In recent months, Christian activists have blamed the militant Islamic group Laskar Jihad for violence in the province, including an April attack on a Christian village that left 12 dead.
The latest violence came two days after Laskar Jihad leader, Jaafar Umar Thalib, was released from jail pending his trial. He faces charges of inciting violence in the province after delivering a speech to thousands of his followers in March calling for war and urging them to reject the peace agreement. The group has denied responsibility for the recent violence.
Meanwhile, racial tension has returned in Central Kalimantan with more than 40 ethnic Madurese settlers fleeing back to their island off East Java, Antara news agency said. They boarded a boat that sailed on Friday to Surabaya, separated by Madura island by the narrow Madura Strait.
The Madurese had just returned to the province after years of self-exile after violent communal ethnic clashes between themselves and the local indigenous Dayak and Malay communities in early 2000.
Antara quoted the head of the police unit in the Kotawaringin Timur district as saying that four decapitated Madurese had been found since Thursday.
Decapitation and mutilation have been the hallmark of the ethnic violence between indigenous Dayak tribes and ethnic Madurese in West and Central Kalimantan since 1999.