Police in Kyrgyzstan “arrested” a red piano found standing outside main post office in the capital on May 16, local media reported, sparking widespread ridicule in the process.
Officers of the law confirmed the detention took place, with one spokesman citing security concerns in an interview with local outlet Kloop.kg.
"We were called on the 102 [number] and told unknown persons had abandoned the piano. We had to cordon off the area to ensure public order and the safety of residents and guests in the capital. We conducted search operations and found no explosives," said spokesman Olzhobay Kazybayev of the suspicious object in the center of the city.
As underwhelming bomb scares go, this is matched only by an incident in Britain over the weekend, when police evacuated Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium after detecting a fake explosive device that was left behind in a security exercise last week.
This jittery behavior should hardly come as a surprise. Kyrgyzstan’s government has appear more nervous than usual in recent months, and pianos do have previous.
They were seen seen surrounded by demonstrators in full voice during both the Gezi Park protests that rocked Turkey in 2013 and Ukraine’s EuroMaidan uprising the following year, for instance.
But on this occasion the offending object seems to have been a gift to the public from a nominally socialist party in the coalition government, Ata-Meken.
“We gave it as a present, so that anybody who wanted could play on the instrument. It was the idea of our youth wing,” a party representative Kairgul Urumkanova told 24.kg.
“They do this in cities all over the world,” Urumkanova said, clearly bemused.
Police confirmed later in the day that the piano had been hauled out to the Sverdlovsky district police department, but said Ata-Meken could put it back outside the post office if they explained it genuinely was a gift to the city and a “planned event.”
The saga has provoked much mirth on social networks. Kloop.kg’s editor-in-chief Eldiyar Arkybayev dropped a thinly veiled reference to a series of recent arrests of opposition figures on coup charges.
“Soon the [KGB] will reveal audio recordings of the piano where plans to violently overthrow the government are being discussed,” he quipped.
A fake news Twitter account, meanwhile, alluded to Kyrgyz law enforcement’s reputation for roughing up its detainees: “The piano at the post office said it was subjected to torture by investigators — they were bashing its keys to extract a confession.”
All in all, with the country’s president recently depicting a country being roiled by a range of sinister mercenaries, there was a feeling that the police might have been doing something better with its time.
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