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At least 54 people have been injured in explosions that shook a mosque at a high school during Friday prayers in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Authorities later said the suspect was a 17-year-old male student who had been injured and was undergoing surgery.
Witnesses told local television stations that they heard at least two loud blasts at about midday, just as the sermon had started, from inside and outside the mosque at SMA 72, a state high school within a navy compound in Jakarta’s northern Kelapa Gading neighbourhood.
Students and others ran out in panic as grey smoke filled the mosque.
Police said they had recovered a toy submachine gun belonging to the suspect and inscribed with what appeared to be white supremacist slogans.
The deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad told reporters after visiting victims at a hospital that the suspect was a “17-year-old male student’” and that he was undergoing surgery. He gave no more details.
The chief of national police, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, said the suspect was one of two students having surgery for injuries from the blasts.
“Our personnel are currently conducting an in-depth investigation to determine the suspect’s identity and the environment where he lives, including his house and others,” Sigit told a news conference at the presidential palace in Jakarta.
Sigit said investigators were still collecting information to determine a motive, including how the suspect was able to assemble a toy submachine gun inscribed with a white supremacist slogan that was a reference to the 2019 mass shooting at a mosque and Islamic centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed and dozens more injured.
“We discovered the weapon was a toy gun with specific markings, which we are also investigating to understand the motive, including how he assembled it and carried out the attack,” Sigit said.
Most of the victims suffered burns and injuries from flying glass. The type of explosive used was not immediately known but the blasts came from near the mosque’s loudspeaker, according to the Jakarta police chief, Asep Edi Suheri.
He warned against speculation that the incident was a terrorist attack before the police investigation was completed.
Police confirmed they were looking into reports in local media that the suspect was a grade 12 student who had been bullied and wanted revenge by carrying out what was intended to be a suicide attack.
“We are still investigating the possibility that bullying was a factor that motivated the suspect to carry out the attack,” the Jakarta police spokesperson Budi Hermanto told reporters late on Friday.
“There are several obstacles in obtaining information from witnesses as they are also victims who need medical treatment to recover,” Hermanto said, adding that authorities were providing “trauma healing” for students and teachers.
He revised the number of people injured to 54, instead of 55 as police had said earlier, saying most of the victims were standing close to the loudspeaker and suffered hearing loss from the blasts inside the mosque. About 33 students remained in two hospitals with burns and wounds from blast fragments.
Hermanto said the capital was safe and security was under control, and he urged people not to be anxious.
Videos circulating on social media showed dozens of students in uniform running in panic across the school’s basketball court, some covering their ears with their hands, apparently to protect themselves from the blasts.
Some of the injured were carried on stretchers to waiting cars.
Shocked relatives gathered at centres set up at Yarsi and Cempaka Putih hospitals to seek information about their loved ones. Parents told television stations their children had wounds from being hit in the head, feet and hands by shrapnel.
