After a series of deadly bombings, Indonesia is pushing to renew the country's anti-terror law. Lawmakers are considering giving authorities the power to investigate people suspected of any terrorism-related activities. CGTN's Silkina Ahluwalia has more.

Indonesia's new anti-terror bill could bring about a significant amount of changes in the country's fight against terrorism. The recent bombings that occurred in several places in East Java pushed the government and House of Representatives to finally conclude the bill that's been overdue.

SUPIADIN ARIES SAPURTA DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, ANTI-TERRORISM DRAFT LAW SPECIAL COMMITTEE "Our current law only allows authorities to take action after an attack has taken place, not so much to prevent them. Laws are not meant to be static, it is meant to be adaptive based on threats happening around us. This year was the first time Indonesia saw women and children being used as suicide bombers. Based on our law, those children are victims. Our priority is to come up with a bill that can help the youth from becoming victims to terror attacks in the future."

Law enforcers have now altered the definition of terrorism in the new bill, to provide authorities and the government with the freedom to investigate and crack down on those suspected of having extremist ideologies or motives. The bill states that if a person is accused of terrorism, they are allowed to be held in custody from seven to fourteen days. Indonesia is currently dealing with an increase in homegrown terrorists and experts say it's concerning.

TAUFIK ANDRIE TERRORISM EXPERT "This is a new development. In the past, we know that ISIS-affiliated groups in Indonesia have lack of capacity. Some of them have no resources in terms of bomb assembly, they don't have money to do big action, they don't have enough support from the people who have the capacity to create some massive attack but since January 2016 things are quite developed and in the case of the Surabaya bombing, it seems that they learned a lot and maybe now they have support from somebody who knows how to make a proper bomb."

Taufik says there has been a rise in local ISIS-affiliated group in the country. Although many of them are not recognized by the official organization, these local groups still pledge allegiance to the network and carry out their attacks independently.

TAUFIK ANDRIE TERRORISM EXPERT "I do believe that the terrorism, although it is a social problem, I think what we need to address is two things. First thing, is the action itself, which means the violent action and the second thing is the ideological manners and how they spread the ideologies, the hate speech and many things that we have to tackle on the prevention, counter-narrative and other things."

Taufik believes the government also needs to put in effort to deal with the deportees and returnees from Syria or Iraq, providing them with proper intervention programs. Silkina Ahluwalia, CGTN, Jakarta.