Pesantren Umar bin Khattab has nothing to do with NU, says NU senior figure

Jakarta, NU Online
Following a bomb exploded las Monday and killing one of teachers of the Umar bin Khattab Islamic boarding school (pesantren), the Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) said that the pesantren had nothing to do with NU which has so far maintained and preserved tolerant and moderate religious views.

H.E. Malik Madani, senior figure of the Nahdliyin-based organization, asserted that the Bima-located pesantren had no NU cultures, adding that NU had been a key actor propagating moderate Islamic views.

Not surprisingly, Malik said, there had been many establishing pesantren by teaching "different" religious tenets, including the Umar bin Khattab Islamic boarding school.

"The Umar bin Khattab Islamic boarding school is not the one having NU cultures," Malik told NU Online here recently.

As reported, police are searching for the principal of the Umar bin Khattab Islamic boarding school in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara province.

"The team is currently following a track to a location where he might have fled to," the head of the National Police`s public information bureau, Brigadier General Ketut Untung Yoga, said here on Thursday.

He said the police were looking for the school principal to coordinate with him on the chronology of the incident after they were unable to find him at the location of the incident.

Untung would not disclose the name of the school principal nor the location where he might have fled to.

He said the house of the school principal caught fire at around 5 am on Thursday but villagers were able to extinguish it at 10 am.

The police had so far discovered nine Molotov cocktails, several knives, tens of catapults, arrows, books on jihad, video compact disc on the declaration of the Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) in Bekasi, West Java, at the location.

The police also found a crater left by the explosion and bomb making tools and materials, such as sulfur, a welding tool and pipes.

Police investigators are now still questioning seven people believed to know about the incident.

A bomb exploded at the school at around 3.30pm on Monday killing Firdaus who was a teacher at the school.

Some local community members and school students blocked access to the school when police were trying to enter the premises. Only after some persuasive approaches to local community leaders could the police enter the location on Wednesday.

The JAT was founded by Abu Bakar Ba`asyir who was recently convicted of involvement in terrorism and sentenced to 15 years in jail. (mkf)