Violence erupts in Deep South as deadline on Tak Bai case nears
Homemade bomb explodes in Narathiwat injuring three, while insurgents attack Tambon Administrative Organisation office in Pattani
Three violent attacks were carried out in Pattani and Narathiwat Wednesday evening and early Thursday in what are suspected to be symbolic attacks related to the Tak Bai massacre case, the statute of limitations on which is due to expire on Friday.
The first attack happened in Tambon Chalerm of Narathiwat’s Rangae district on Wednesday evening.
Police said three patrol troops were injured when insurgents detonated a homemade bomb planted in a drainage sewer under the road between Ban Kujing Luepah and Ban Bango Luhboh villages.
The explosion blew a hole in the road one metre deep and two metres wide.
Then, at about 20 minutes after midnight, an explosion occurred on Soi Chang in Ban Na Prao village in Tambon Panare of Pattani’s Panare district.
Police said there were no reports of casualties so far.
About 1.05 am, some 10 suspected insurgents raided the Tambon Ban Nam Administrative Organisation in Panare district.
They tied up four employees of the Ban Nam TAO who were guarding the compound and made off with a pickup truck believed to have been later used in a bomb attack.
Srisompop Jitpirom, an academic with Prince of Songkla University, earlier predicted that the insurgents would step up attacks ahead of and after the Tak Bak case expires on Friday to express their dissatisfaction that no state officials have been brought to justice for the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters 20 years ago.
On October 25, 2004, over 1,000 Muslims rallied in front of the Tak Bai district police station in Narathiwat to demand the release of some Muslims arrested on suspicion of being insurgents or sympathisers.
The southern army deployed troops to disperse the protesters, resulting in seven deaths at the scene. 78 other protesters died of suffocation after being forced onto jam-packed trucks to be transported to a military base in Pattani.
Public prosecutors and relatives of the victims have filed two lawsuits against 14 suspects but none of the defendants has been brought to be arraigned in the court. Without their presence in the court, the statute of limitations of the case will expire on Friday.
