Bomb blasts in Bangkok mall injures shoppers
BANGKOK: Police in Thailand yesterday were investigating a pair of bombings outside a luxury shopping mall in the heart of Bangkok, the first such violence reported in the capital since last year’s army coup. One person was slightly injured in the blasts Sunday night, and police said the small homemade bombs were designed to sow panic, not kill.
The explosions occurred about 8 pm between the upscale Siam Paragon shopping mall and a mass transit elevated train line, which was undamaged but briefly shut as a precaution. Siam Paragon was titled the world’s most photographed location on Instagram in 2013 and is a trendy meeting place in Bangkok that claims to have more than 100,000 Thai and foreign visitors a day. Police initially said the explosions were caused by a malfunctioning transformer, but National Police spokesman Lt Gen. Prawut Thawornsiri later said they were caused by devices that were probably not meant to hurt anyone. Service at the station was suspended for about an hour.
“The explosions were caused by two pipe bombs, but the flash powder that was used had low pressure. You can see that the damage was not much,” national police spokesman Lt Gen Prawut Thawornsiri told reporters Monday. “It showed the perpetrators intended only to cause panic, threaten or stir up chaos.” “We have not ruled out a possibility that it was politically motivated but we are pursuing all kinds of motives,” he said.
The explosive ordnance disposal team said the two bombs were controlled by digital clocks and one of them was hidden behind a transformer, which sent out some plume of smokes near the busy sky train station, according to police Col Kamthorn Auicharoen, who heads the unit. He said a Thai man was slightly injured in his left hand. Kamthorn said police were looking for two male suspects seen on closed-circuit television footage and will likely issue arrest warrants for them in a few days.
Rising political temperature
The incident came at a time of slightly raised political temperatures in Thailand, as the country’s ruling junta has tightened its clampdown on critics of its rule. It came a little more than a week after the impeachment of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Thailand has been under martial law since the army seized power in a May 22 coup that toppled her elected government.
There has been little open opposition, and virtually no violent opposition, to the military regime that took over from an elected civilian government after the coup d’etat. Martial law remains in effect under the dual administration of the junta and a militaryappointed interim Cabinet, and any dissent is strongly discouraged. Junta-leader-cum-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Monday that security measures will be tightened and asked the public to help prevent such an incident from happening again.
Thailand has a history of conspiratorial politics, and political protests in the capital, especially aggressive street demonstrations, have become more common since a 2006 coup toppled Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, from the prime minister’s job. — AP