Senator Anusart: "So many deaths that we can’t keep up with the funerals"
"I am saddened with the incidents during this period. While the cremation of Acting Sub-Lt Benjaporn Kuathung, a police officer’s wife, is yet to take place, the same incident happened to Ms Sayamon sae Lim, an employee of Bangkok Bank, and while the bathing rite is yet to take place, four more people get killed in Mae Lan," so said Senator Anusart Suwanmongkol of Pattani.
Benjaporn, the wife of a police officer attached to Ratapanyang police station in Yaring district of Pattani, was shot dead while she was riding on a motorcycle by the pillion rider of another motorbike and the assailants set fire on her body. The incident took place on February 9.
Three days afterward, Ms Sayamon, was shot as she was riding home in her motorcycle after finishing her job at the bank in Yaring district. Her assailants then poured gasoline on her body and set it afire. Three leaflets were left at the scene reminding authorities of the killing of three Muslim brothers on February 3 in Narathiwat’s Bacho district.
Also on the same day in Pattani’s Mae Lan district, four assailants riding on two motorcycles opened fire with assault rifles into a group of people about to present alms to a monk. The monk and three lay people, including a mother and her nine-year old son, were killed and eight others injured.
Senator Anusart said that such indiscriminated attacks against civilians should not have happened because they are not a party in the conflict. So did the killing of three Muslim brothers, aged from 6 to 11.
It was widely speculated within Muslim communities that authorities might have perpetrated the killing of the three brothers as they raided their house.
Senator Anusart said that government officials must try to convince the Malay Muslim people in the Deep South that they were not involved whatsoever in the killing of the three Muslim brothers.
He disclosed that over 20 innocent civilians had been killed in recent weeks and personally felt that the unrest situation had deteriorated.
Regarding the dead monk, Phra Panom Kanont of Wat Pa Suey, the senator said that the monk had just moved into the Deep South on January 22 from Rayong due to a shortage of monks in the region.
Every monk at Wat Pa Suey was escorted by a soldier or ranger whenever he went out to receive alms. Phra Panom was escorted as normal but his escort who is a soldier was badly wounded in the attack and Phra Panom was killed along with three civilians on February 12.
The violence against innocent civilians prompted civil societies and human rights organizations to issue statements condemning the perpetrators responsible for such crimes.
They asked both the security forces and the militants to refrain from harming innocent civilians and police to speed up the probes into the violent incidents for the sake of justice for the victims and their families.
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Caption : Senator Anusart Suwanmongkol