24 hurt in Thai hospital blast
> Suspicion likely to focus on political dissidents
BANGKOK: A bomb blast at a hospital in the Thai capital wounded 24 people yesterday, the third anniversary of the 2014 military coup.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast at the Phramongkutklao Hospital, which is popular with soldiers and their families and retired military officers.
“It was a bomb. We found the pieces that were used to make the bomb,” Kamthorn Aucharoen, commander of the police’s explosive ordnance team, told Reuters, adding it was not clear who was behind the attack.
“Right now, authorities are checking out closed-circuit TV cameras,” Kamthorn said.
Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said 24 people had been wounded. Most of the wounded were hit by flying glass shards, the military’s national security unit said.
Suspicion is likely to focus either on political dissidents opposed to military rule or separatists based in the south.
Soldiers cordoned off the hospital’s entrance, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
Deputy national police chief General Srivara Rangsibrahmanakul said the bomb had been hidden in a container by the entrance of a pharmacy.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the May 22, 2014 military coup that toppled a democratically elected government and ended months of unrest, including sometimes deadly street demonstrations.
Since the coup, the junta, known as the National Council for Peace and Order, has clamped down on dissent and ramped up prosecutions under sedition and royal defamation laws.
The military has always played a prominent role in Thai life but since the coup it has become embedded in society with military men more entrenched than under previous governments.
The military government has acknowledged it wants to weaken political parties and maintain permanent influence over elected governments, partly through a new constitution approved by the king last month.
An election is due by the end of next year.
The blast comes weeks after a car bomb at a shopping centre in the province of Pattani which wounded 61 people, and which authorities blamed on the insurgents.
A bomb went off in the province of Yala earlier yesterday, wounding military officers. – Reuters