Widow of the slain teacher wants to leave restive region
The wife of the slain teacher wants to move out of the restive region now that her family has lost a key breadwinner.
“I feel as if I were a person without arms since his departure because he (Mr Manote) was the only one who took care of everything in our home. There was a time he was away from home for 15 days to attend a training course, I felt I could not live without him. But now he has gone forever, I don’t know how can I survive,” Mrs Chanarat Chadarat lamented in her interview with the Isra news desk.
Her husband, Mr Manote, a teacher at Dechapattanayanukul school in Pattani, was gunned down by suspected Islamic militants last Saturday January 15 as he was leaving his house to provide a special tuition to some students. His killing came one day before the Teacher’s Day and two days ahead of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s scheduled visit to Pattani province.
Mrs Chanarat, herself a teacher at a kindergarten school in Pattani, said her mother-in-law had advised her to move out and to quit her teaching job warning that she might end up in the same way like her husband.
Recalling the morning Mr Manote was shot dead, she said, before leaving the house, her husband dressed up their youngest kid who cried out loud. He then told the kid that he would return later with their lunch. And that was his last words to the family before he was killed shortly afterward by suspected militants who had, apparently, waited for him.
“Then I didn’t think of anything because I thought he would be back around noon with our lunch. So, I didn’t say goodbye,” said the kindergarten teacher, adding she felt very saddened for the loss of her husband whom she described as a family man who had never had a conflict with anybody.
Her ten-year old daughter, Paveenuch, meanwhile, held deep grudges against the killers, saying that she wanted them to face the same fate like her late father. She said she didn’t understand why her father had to be killed.
Director of Dechapattanayanukul school, Mr Thanu Noonnoi, said all the teaching staff at the school were shocked by Mr Manote’s sudden death. He praised the victim as a responsible teacher who was widely loved by his colleagues and was whose knowledge in mathematics and computer was frequently sought by officials at the Pattani educational office.
Security officials, meanwhile, suspected that the shooting to death of the schoolteacher was intended to challenge the security forces and the government that they were incapable of protecting the teachers from attacks by militants despite a security beefup in the townships of the three southernmost provinces since the New Year’s day.
Colonel Banpot Poonpien, spokesman of the branch office of the Internal Security Operations Command based in the Fourth Army Region, noted that the teacher’s killers had chosen the right timing to launch their attack in order to attract attention of both local and foreign media.
“They (the killers) usually chose symbolic days such as Teacher’s Day. They appeared to have planned the attack for quite some time and when there was an opportunity they unleashed the attack,” said the colonel.
As for security measures for teachers, Colonel Banpot admitted that the journey back and forth between schools and the teachers’ houses was normally most vulnerable to militant attacks despite military escorts for the teachers.
For better protection, he advised teachers who wanted to make special travels besides routine travels in armed convoys to notify security forces so security could be arranged.
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Caption : Family of the slain teacher