Heavy security presence as schools reopen in deep South
SECURITY in the deep South was tightened yesterday when schools opened for the second semester.
The security beef-up came as Yala Governor Doldej Pattanarat called a meeting at the Raman District Office to try and persuade religious and community leaders in the 16 tambons of Raman to participate in efforts to restore peace in the region.
Doldej also visited several hundred police, Army and administrative security personnel and village defence volunteers to urged them to work together in bringing about peace.
Despite the threat, the atmosphere in Yala’s Muang district was buzzing as parents took their kids to schools, with soldiers and defence volunteers stationed in front of schools.
Yala Primary Educational Service Area Office 1 director Adul Phromsaeng inspected the Ban Pong Yeu Rai School in Tambon Bannang Sareng.
Meanwhile, electricity workers found a 20kg bomb behind a roadside power pole while fixing four bomb-damaged power poles in Tambon Katong of Yaha district yesterday afternoon.
The Anothai Task Force’s explosive ordnance disposal team defused the bomb and evidence was gathered in an attempt to glean DNA.
It is suspected that the bomb was part of the bomb attacks last Thursday but it was a dud.
In Pattani’s Yarang district yesterday, police inspected a grocery shop in Tambon Krado, where former Islamic religious schoolteacher and shop owner Sama-ae Yeelae, 32, was shot dead on Sunday night.
Police said four men in a pick-up truck stopped at the shop and two pretended to be customers before shooting Sama-ae three times at close range and fleeing.
Police are trying to determine if the slaying was part of ongoing unrest in the deep South or stemmed from a personal conflict.
