The IKEA store in Alam Sutera, Tangerang – the only outlet of the Swedish furniture giant in Indonesia – received a bomb threat yesterday evening from an anonymous caller.
At around 5:15 pm, the IKEA call center received a phone call warning them about an imminent bomb explosion in the store.
“The threat was that IKEA will explode 10 minutes from 5:15 pm,” said Cipondoh Sub-Precinct Chief Commissioner Paryanto, as quoted by Warta Kota yesterday.
IKEA then immediately reported the threat to the police, who arrived at the scene moments later and evacuated hundreds of customers and staff from the building.
The Jakarta Metro Police’s Gegana bomb squad combed through the building but could not find any explosives.
“Clear, there’s no bomb,” a Gegana officer told Liputan6.
The police say that they have the anonymous caller’s phone number and are in the process of tracking them down. For investigative reasons, they did not disclose the caller’s identity to the public.
Just a few hundred meters away from IKEA is Mall @ Alam Sutera. Low-powered bombs exploded in that mall’s toilets on two separate occasions last year, once in July and another time in October.
