Assistant public works engineer arrested for Yala car bomb attack
Suspect’s connection to the attack was traced through his signing out of the vehicle from the tambon administrative office and familial ties to a suspected insurgent
Police arrested an assistant public works engineer in Yala’s Bannang Sata district over suspicions of having a hand in Sunday’s car bomb attack outside the district police station’s residential building.
Investigators identified the suspect as Mustofa Malae, 27, from Ban Jarohpae in Than To district and detained him under the emergency decree, which allows the authorities to arrest suspects without a warrant.
Mustofa became a suspect when police investigators learned he had signed out a pick-up truck from the Tambon Than To Administration Organisation, where he worked, without providing a reason.
Another point that worked against him was that his wife is related to Wehusman Wehmong, a suspected insurgent facing an arrest warrant.
The explosion occurred at 10.30am on Sunday outside police housing quarters and killed an Islamic teacher, identified as Rokiyoh Sarana, 35. She was reportedly riding a motorcycle past the pickup truck when it exploded.
The explosion also injured 34 others and damaged several cars and motorcycles parked nearby as well as power poles and some houses nearby.
Pol Lt-General Piyawat Chalermsri, Provincial Police Bureau 9 commissioner, confirmed that the bomb had been hidden inside the pickup truck “borrowed” from the Than To administration office a day earlier.
He said insurgents allegedly hid a homemade bomb inside the vehicle and parked it near the residential building before it was detonated by a timer about 10 minutes later.
The bomb was assembled inside a 16-kilogram gas cylinder with explosives and pieces of iron weighing some 80kg. Some 2 gallons of petrol was also placed inside the pick-up truck to amplify the explosion, police said.
Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong immediately flew to Yala after hearing of the explosion on Sunday. While there, he met the teacher’s family and told the press that she had been riding to a market to buy food for her students at the Islamic boardin school in the tambon.
He said he has instructed the Yala provincial administration to set up a centre to receive complaints from the affected.
