The National Human Rights Commission yesterday urged the government to conduct a fresh investigation into the shooting dead of 19 young Muslims by police in Songkhla’s Saba Yoi district on April 28 last year.

A 21-page report released yesterday by the commission indicated that the police at Saba Yoi checkpoint did not fire in self-defence as claimed earlier by government investigators.

An autopsy report said that at least nine of the 19 people were shot in the head, suggesting that officials had plenty of time to aim at a specific part of the body.

The 19 Muslims, mostly members of the Ban Suso soccer team, were killed in the April uprising when more than 100 Muslims simultaneously attacked security outposts in 10 districts in the three southernmost provinces.

Officials killed 106 people in all, including 32 at the historic Krue

Se mosque, and arrested many others.

The government ordered an inquiry into the storming of the mosque but did not order the same for the Saba Yoi incident because it was believed that the officials had fired in self-defence.

The human rights commission said the officials did not conduct proper autopsies on many of the victims as forensic reports indicated only that they were shot dead without mentioning specific organs.

“There are many conflicts in the official report of the incident as the wounds on the dead bodies and the location where they were found suggest that they might not have died during the exchange of gunfire as claimed by officials at the scene,” the panel’s report said.

“If there really was a gunfight, why were none of the officials injured?” the report said.

The relatives of the victims at Ban Suso told The Nation that they believed the young Muslims were killed in cold blood after they surrendered.

“Of the 19 dead bodies we found at the scene, 14 were shot in the head,” said Manuyee Maeprommi, who said he saw all the bodies that fateful day.

Manuyee lost his younger brother Kamarudin in the incident.

He said the villagers accepted that the security officials acted in self-defence but they questioned the shoot-to-kill policy adopted against the youths, who were carrying knives, not firearms.

“Shooting people in the head means shooting to kill,” he said.

The soldiers were patrolling a stretch of road near Chakwua village in Raman district when they were attacked at around 2.30pm, Pol Lt Colonel Mustorpha Mani was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

The four were leading a convoy of teachers when the attack occurred, Mustorpha said.

Teachers and schools, seen by militants as a symbol of Bangkok’s influence, are frequent targets of shootings, bombings and arson attacks. Armed police and soldiers escort teachers to and from class every day.

After the ambush, militants set tyres ablaze, dropped spikes and hauled logs onto the road to prevent security forces from chasing them, according to army Lt General Adul Seangsingkoae.

Adul said he had ordered 500 troops into the area.

Separately in Raman, two Muslim men were seriously wounded in a shooting in front of a local mosque.

In another incident in Pattani’s Yarang district, a Muslim schoolteacher was ambushed and killed in his sedan by suspected Islamic insurgents.

Investigating officials said that Surasen Mama, 29, a teacher at Prasarnwittaya School, was only 50 metres away from the school when an unknown number of militants, hiding near the roadside, riddled his car with fire from AK-47 assault rifles and 11 mm pistols. He died at scene. Officials said they found 11 bullet holes in the car.

Yala