JAKARTA: The South Jakarta Police are investigating the ownership and origins of nearly 1,000 firearms found at a private school in South Jakarta, which were found along with suspected narcotics, pornographic materials and a room resembling a bunker.
South Jakarta Police spokesperson Adj. Comr. Joko Adiwibowo said on Thursday the case is currently in the investigation stage, with the police having received a report from the public about the weapons, as quoted by Antara.
The items were discovered at the Harapan Ibu Islamic School Foundation in Pondok Pinang, South Jakarta, when school officials on July 10 opened a concealed room they intended to use for school activities, according to the school foundation’s lawyer, Hermawanto.
The lawyer added that school officials sought the police’s assistance to open other locked rooms on Wednesday evening and found more weapons, as well as ammunition-making equipment and manuals on making ammunition.
Other items discovered from the rooms included a box containing pornographic CDs and suspected narcotics such as crystal methamphetamine and marijuana.
The school foundation also found a concealed room resembling a bunker and will ask the police to help open it, citing legal risks, Hermawanto went on to say.
The items discovered on July 10 were found in a room belonging to the former school foundation chair, identified only by his initials, IWD. He was dismissed in April but retained the keys to the room, according to Hermawanto.
IWD, through his lawyer, denied that the weapons found were firearms, saying they are legally licensed airsoft guns owned by PT Lokta Karya Perbakin, a company affiliated with the Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association (Perbakin).
Alhadid Endar Putra, IWD’s lawyer and managing director of PT Lokta Karya Perbakin, said the equipment had been kept at the school for shooting and archery extracurricular programmes.
“These are legally owned items. They are not firearms in the conventional sense, but primarily airsoft guns used for sports and school extracurricular activities,” Alhadid said on Friday, as quoted by Kompas.com.
He added that there were permits issued in 2008 by the police for the weapons, which had been stored at the school since 2021 with the knowledge of the foundation’s previous management.
According to Alhadid, most of the airsoft guns are no longer functional, and the shooting extracurricular activity was discontinued after its instructor, identified only by the initials S, died in 2022.
He also denied allegations that the suspected drugs and pornographic CDs found on the school premises belonged to IWD, urging the police to question the party that had physically controlled the school for the past several months.
The school foundation, however, denied IWD’s claims, saying on Friday that teachers who had worked at the school for years had confirmed it had never offered shooting as an extracurricular activity.
On Friday afternoon, the Jakarta Police identified the weapons’ owner as an individual identified as DS, who died in 2020, but stopped short of providing further details about his connection to the school foundation.
Of all the weapons found at the school premises, 995 were identified as air guns and only one, a Franchi SPAS-15 12-gauge, was a live firearm, said Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Budi Hermanto.
He added that the police would question IWD to clarify the origin, ownership, permits, storage location and intended use of the weapons. – Jakarta Post/ANN