Thai police urge patience as lack of equipment hampers bomb probe
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The police chief yesterday claimed that the slowness of investigation into the Bangkok shrine bomber is not caused by police's lack of capability but because they have shortage of some the modern equipment like police in foreign countries to find the pri
Pol Gen Somyot Poompanmuang said urged the public to be patience in their hunt for the bomber.
However the investigation is progressing although police have limitation of equipment, he said.
Thai police have to wait for assistance from other countries that when they would transport the equipment to support our work.
However, he said, it was lucky that there were some Thai sellers of the equipment who provided it for us. But unfortunately there were some technical problems that we could not use our information with the given equipment.
He did not reveal the equipment the police need but it is likely to be facial recognition technology or programmes to enhance security camera footage.
It is already six days after the deadly attack, that killed 20 people and wounded many others. Police arrested no one, but the hunt has so far focused on a suspect in a yellow T-shirt seen on CCTV placing a rucksack under a bench at the Erawan shrine minutes before the blast.
A sketch of the man has been widely circulated. He is described on his arrest warrant as "foreign" but police have since said he could in fact be Thai or of mixed race.
Unverified footage, time-stamped just a few minutes after Monday's blast, shows a second man in a blue T-shirt kicking a package into water near a bridge in the same spot where a device exploded on Tuesday without injuries.
But police have not publicly linked the two blasts despite pressure to reveal more.
Meanwhile police spokesman Pol Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri said, “We cannot give details of that progress... let the police work.”
"We are working around the clock.... but this kind of a case is not easy."
With no-one claiming responsibility, rumours and speculation have swirled in Thailand over the country's worst single mass-casualty attack in living memory.
The potential perpetrators named by police and experts alike include international jihadists, members of Thailand's southern Malay-Muslim insurgency, militants on both sides of Thailand's festering political divide or even someone with a personal grudge.
