Child of Sidoarjo bomber rejected parents’ radical teaching, moved out before bomb went off

One of the saddest and most disturbing aspects of the explosions in East Java on Sunday and Monday is that all of the parents behind the bombings had apparently indoctrinated their children into their radical ideologies, allegedly by preventing them from attending school and showing them jihadist propaganda.

One of the explosions took place in an apartment building in Sidoarjo on Sunday night, killing a man identified as 47-year-old Anton Febrianto as well as his wife and their 17-year-old daughter. Two of the couple’s other children were injured, but a third, a 15-year-old boy identified by police as AR, was not in the apartment with the rest of the family. It is believed they were killed by a bomb of Anton’s  own making.

East Java Police Chief Irjen Machfud Arifin said that’s because AR had refused to follow his parent’s radical ideology, nor their orders that he not attend school.  

“There is one older child from the apartment that refused to follow the teachings of his parents,” Machfud said yesterday as quoted by Kompas.

According to Machfud, AR decided to stay in school and live with his grandmother instead.

AR told police that he and his brothers and sisters had been indoctrinated in radical ideology from since they were young and were regularly shown jihadist videos.

His family also often went to the home of the one families believed to be behind the suicide bombings that took place on Sunday at three churches in Surabaya.

AR was not in the apartment when the bomb his father allegedly constructed went off, but he arrived soon after and helped authorities bring his injured siblings to the hospital where they are still in intensive care.

Indonesia has been hit with numerous terror attacks this week, most of them occurring in the East Java Province. The latest casualty count across the five explosion sites in Sidoarjo and Surabaya stands at at least 28 dead and 57 injured. The latest attack occurred this morning at the Riau Provincial Police headquarters, leaving one policeman dead.



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