A man was injured in a second bomb attack at the same central Bangkok location within a month, police said yesterday, as the city remains under emergency rule after deadly anti-government demonstrations.
Police said the explosion at 11pm on Thursday at a duty-free shopping outlet on Rangnam Road was just meters away from the site of the previous blast.
The wounded man — who is in a serious condition in Rajavithi hospital with shrapnel wounds to his head and leg — is a 23-year-old security guard at the shopping center.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who is in charge of national security, said it was not clear who was behind the attack, although he said it was aimed at inciting unrest in the Thai capital.
CONFUSION
“The only motive for the blast is to create confusion in the country ... the situation in Bangkok is still worrisome and those who intended to create unrest are not yet ready to abandon violence,” he said.
Suthep said he had instructed police to set up more checkpoints and search people around key government facilities and the homes of senior political figures.
Lieutenant Colonel Krissana Sukanta, chief investigator at the Phayathai police station, said the blast had been caused by a grenade launched from a vantage point nearby.
“No one has been arrested and it is still under investigation,” he said.
In the previous attack on July 30, a grenade hidden in a plastic rubbish bag injured a Thai man in his 30s who was scavenging for scrap.
That blast came less than a week after a small bomb exploded at a Bangkok bus stop, killing one person and injuring 10 in an attack that rekindled tensions in the capital two months after the end of bloody street protests.
A man linked to the “Red Shirt” demonstrations was arrested over the July 30 explosion.
GRENADE
Police said the suspect, 23-year-old Sorathien Singkanya, admitted that the grenade belonged to him but had denied planting it himself.
The blasts have threatened to delay the recovery of Thailand’s tourism industry, which was shaken by the April and May rallies that left 91 people dead and nearly 1,900 injured in clashes between protesters and the military.
The explosion on Thursday will be discussed by the Center for Resolution of the Emergency Situation, which oversees emergency laws still in place in Bangkok and six other provinces in response to the unrest.
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