Bambang Muryanto, Yogyakarta – Police played down the possibility of a terrorist link in the explosion of an automated teller machine (ATM) in Yogyakarta early on Friday.
The ATM booth, which was located on Jl. Gejayan, Sleman and belonged to Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), reportedly exploded and caught fire.
The incident took place less than two weeks after a suicide bomb ripped through a church in the neighboring Central Java city of Surakarta. There were no fatalities among the congretation inside the church at the time; only the suicide bomber was killed.
Witnesses said they heard a loud noise coming from the direction of the ATM booth early that morning.
Ari, an employee at a mini market adjacent to the ATM, said he heard a loud explosion at 1:50 a.m. "I went out and saw that the ATM booth was already on fire," he said.
The booth was completely burned down but the safe-deposit box was still intact. Sleman Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Irwan Ramaini confirmed that all the money was still inside the box.
The fire also destroyed the wall of an ATM belonging to Bank Nasional Indonesia (BNI), which was located right next to the burned ATM.
Irwan, however, said that the perpetrator(s) might have nothing to do with a terrorist movement. "I guess they are just a fad group that is not happy with current conditions in Indonesia," he said, Friday.
The police questioned a man identified as Billy, who came to the explosion site looking for his lost wallet. "We held him because he made us suspicious. He was not carrying his ID card," said Irwan.
Yogyakarta Police chief Brig. Gen. Tjuk Basuki said that the ATM incident on Jl. Gejayan was not a bombing. "The perpetrator used fuel and then set the ATM alight. No Molotov cocktail had been used," said Tjuk, adding that the police were still probing the case, with investigations focused on explosive substances.
He said the smell of gasoline was emanating from the site. So far, he added, no chemical elements that are usually associated with bomb-making were found at the site, which accounted for his assumption that the perpetrator(s) just wanted to steal money from the ATM.
Local people concurred with the opinion that there was no terrorist link, after finding leaflets at the explosion site which carried the message that "a police and military corporate state is the true terrorism". Another message condemned capitalism.
The police discovered a press card at the site bearing the name of Roni from Indonesia Express News.
As of Friday afternoon, police cordons were still present at the crime scene, as a number of officials from the Central Java Police Forensic Laboratory continued their investigations at the site.