Hindustan Times.Com, Friday, March 10, 2006|20:06 IST
Blast at Hindu temple in Indonesia
Associated Press
Poso (Indonesia), One person was wounded when a homemade bomb exploded at a
Hindu temple at the coastal town of Sulawesi.
The blast was caused by a low-intensity bomb that was placed in the home of the
temple's guard, said Poso Deputy Police Chief Major Andreas Wayan.
The device detonated when the 40-year-old man, Nengah Sugiarta, opened the door,
causing the roof and wooden walls to collapse, he said.
"Whoever did this wanted to create panic and spread terror here in Poso," Wayan
said, adding that the police found black powder, nails, shrapnel and a battery at the
scene, which indicated that the bomb was homemade.
Hundreds of onlookers gathered around the temple after the blast, which seriously
wounded Sugiarta, riddling his legs and waist with shrapnel and wood. He was taken
to a nearby hospital.
Wayan said it was too early to say who was behind the attack - the first to target
Hindus in Poso, a city 1,600 kilometres northeast of Jakarta.
Though nearly 90 per cent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, Poso's
population has an almost equal number of Christians and there are also a small
number of Hindus, most of whom arrived from the island of Bali in the last three
decades.
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