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SOUTHERN VIOLENCE : Bomb wrecks Pattani health centre
Published on June 12, 2005
No injuries as experts detonate 15kg device in town’s Nong Chik district
A bomb squad detonated a 15-kilogram bomb planted near a public health centre in Pattani’s Nong Chik district yesterday. The blast demolished the centre, but nobody was hurt.
The incident came amid growing fears that violence and arson attacks in the restive region will continue unabated.
The Nong Chik bomb was packed into an empty fire extinguisher and buried just metres from the wooden health centre that had earlier survived an arson attack.
Residents of Baan Pakajinor
living within a one-kilometre radius of the scene were told
to evacuate their homes as au-thorities decided to deliberately detonate the bomb rather
than take the risk of trying to defuse it.
They feared that insurgents were waiting for more officials to gather at the scene before remotely detonating the bomb.
At Kanudong, in Pattani’s
Sai Buri district, a Tambon Administrative Organisation building was torched and police found a fake bomb beneath a motorcycle that had been knocked over nearby.
In neighbouring Yala province, a construction worker, Phuang Sungsakul, 49, was shot three times early yesterday as he rode his motorcycle to work in Muang district. He died in hospital.
On Friday, a Muslim villager, Abdulroya Torloh, 39, was shot dead by unknown assailants at his home in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district and, on the same day, Buddhist Prachuab Srikrien, 42, was shot by gunmen who ambushed his car in Rangae
district.
He died at the scene of the attack.
In another incident yesterday, suspected militants shot and injured the elder brother of a former Yala provincial governor, Yuthasit Kittichokewattana, police said.
Authorities blame the latest incidents on a mix of Islamic separatism, organised crime and contraband smuggling. |
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