Banks in Yala reopened yesterday amid tightened security following cordinated bombings at 22 of them by suspected Muslim militants on Thursday even as a suspect reported to the police, protesting his innocence.

It was business as usual in the banks but customers' belongings would henceforth be subjected to strict inspections. Several banks were also submitting proposals to their headquarters for budgets to purchase metal detectors.

Yala Governor Boonyasit Suwannarat said since the process might take a long while, the province had decided to lend seven of these gadgets to the seven busiest banks.

He added that he would try to have more surveillance cameras in place.

In a related development, an electronic technician, Abdulloh Chedeemae, 21, surrendered himself to the police after officials had issued an arrest warrant under the Emergency law. Abdulloh denied all the allegations against him and said he would only testify in court. Police, however, interrogated him.

 Police said a survilliance video in the Government Savings Bank had recorded Abdulloh's presence apart from that of Isma-ae Bueraheng, 25, also on an arrest warrant but still at large.

In Yala's Than To district, one woman was killed and five others were injured in separate attacks yesterday.

The rubber-tapping father-son duo of Cheloh Niya, 56, and Muttagee Niya, 20, were shot by an unknown number of gunmen while riding a motorbike to work in a plantation in Joh I Rong District of Narathiwat early on Monday. Both were critically injured.

Separately, a 5kg bomb hidden by a road near a bridge in Takbai District in the same province went off as a convoy of security officials passed by.

The bomb left Private Adirek Jaichuay, 22, injured but the five other officials were safe.

 The men were on their way to provide security for Ban Pak Pla School in the area.

Around the same time in Yala's Than Toh district, a 58-year-old woman, Mareeyoh Satae, was found dead in a house with her head and body riddled with bullets, police said.

Her son, Ahama Lateh, 38, and, Sitinooreesun Wachi, 29, were also shot in the body and in the head, respectively, and sent to local hospitals.

Investigators suspect militants had ambushed the three rubber-tappers as they rested in the house.

The Nation

Yala