Jakarta, September 13: Indonesia will boost security nationwide to safeguard Eid el-Fitr celebrations at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, state-media said Sunday.
Authorities estimate that more than 27 million people will travel to their hometowns across the world’s largest Muslim-populous nation for Eid el-Fitr, which falls on September 21-22.
The government has set official holiday dates from September 18- 23, but the travelling is expected to begin a week earlier.
West Java police chief Inspector General Timur Pradopo said around 3,000 counter-terror squad officers will be on duty, the state-run Antara news agency reported.
Pradopo said the officers will be assigned to guard public places such as bus terminals, railway stations, airports and major highways, as well as conducting patrols along provincial borders.
“We will monitor border areas to anticipate infiltration of suspected terrorists into West Java province,” Pradopo was quoted as saying.
Police were still hunting down for several suspects in the July bombings of JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, including alleged mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, believed to head a breakaway faction of the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
One of the four fugitives in the July 17 bombings was a convicted bomb-maker identified as Urwah, who served an earlier prison term, and police said he had “returned to his old habits.”
The Malaysian-born Noordin, South-East Asia’s most-wanted man, escaped a police raid in Central Java last month, in which an alleged accomplice was killed.
Noordin is also accused of masterminding the 2003 suicide bombing on the same Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people, and the 2004 attack on the Australian embassy in the Indonesian capital, in which 11 people were killed.
–Agencies