Police detonate small bomb at Thai polling station

Pattani (Thailand), Apr 2: Police detonated a small bomb discovered today outside a polling station in Muslim-majority southern Thailand as the nation voted in a general election.

Witnesses said police moved bystanders away from the bomb, concealed in a paper bag outside the polling station in Pattani, a provincial capital, before detonating it with shotgun rounds. It exploded with a loud bang.

Local media also reported a number of hoax bomb threats to polling stations in the south, where more than 1,000 people have been killed in two years of separatist unrest.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who called the snap poll to counter a middle-class Bangkok campaign to oust him, is deeply unpopular in the south.

REUTERS

Related Stories