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NTB Police Name 6 Suspects in Bima Incident but Are Yet to Detain Them
Fitri | February 21, 2012

Protesters angry about the government’s failure to revoke a mining permit burned down the Bima district head’s office in West Nusa Tenggara. (Antara Photo/Rinby) Protesters angry about the government’s failure to revoke a mining permit burned down the Bima district head’s office in West Nusa Tenggara. (Antara Photo/Rinby)
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Mataram. The West Nusa Tenggara Police on Monday named six suspects in the destruction of the Bima district head office, which was burned to the ground by an angry mob on Jan. 26.

The suspects, believed to have provoked members of the public during the incident, were identified as Muhammad, Aca, Arafik, Anhar, Ahmad and Mulyadin. They have not been detained.

West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Police spokesman Sukarman Husen said the police had yet to interrogate the suspects.

“We will wait until the situation allows us to do so,” he said. “Right now is not the time.”

Sukarman said the police had only gathered data and identified the suspects.

Losses from the incident were still being calculated, he said, adding that the administration in Bima’s Lambu district was yet to result to normal, especially because local residents were sometimes blocking roads.

“The situation in Lambu is still being dominated by suspicions,” Sukarman said. “Sometimes the roads are opened and sometimes they are closed. Public service is still not functioning normally.”

Constructing a new office might cost Rp 20 billion ($2.2 million), Bima district head Ferry Zulkarnain said.

NTB administration spokesman H.M. Faozal said his office had met with Ferry to follow up the incident. NTB Governor Zainul Majdi also met with Ferry and his staff, visiting the temporary office last week.

Fifty-three people were arrested during the January demonstration held to protest a mining exploration permit issued in 2010 to Australian gold prospector Sumber Mineral Nusantara.

Snipers were deployed in a brutal police crackdown, and at least three civilian protesters died from gunshot wounds.

During the riot in which the district office was burned down, protesters also went to the police detention facility where 35 people who had been arrested in the earlier protest were being held.

The mob demanded they be released, and all of them were freed. Some have since turned themselves in again.