Woman shot dead; body burned in market

A policeman's wife was shot dead and her body set on fire in front of terrified shoppers at a busy market in Thailand's violence-ridden deep south in an apparent revenge attack, officials said on Monday.

The 28-year-old Buddhist woman was shot on Sunday afternoon as she returned to her car from a market in the Ratapanyang area of Pattani province.

A police officer said a note left at the scene indicated the attack was in revenge for the deaths last week of three Muslim brothers, aged 3, 5 and 9.

"We will keep killing you as long as you are still on our land," the officer reported the letter as saying. He called Sunday's victim "an unarmed, soft target from the Buddhist community".

Insurgents blame Thai authorities for the boys' deaths - although there has been no official evidence to back up the claim.

Sunday's killing raises the specter of an increase in tit-for-tat killings between Muslims and Buddhists in Pattani. The restive region is one of three Muslim-majority provinces in the grip of a bloody decade-long insurgency that has claimed more than 5,900 lives, the majority of them civilians.

After the woman was shot, her body was torched in front of shoppers, the police officer told AFP. But no one had yet come forward with information because of fears of retribution from the attackers, who are thought to be militants.

On Feb 3, the three Muslim brothers were shot in front of their home in neighboring Narathiwat province. Their father and pregnant mother were wounded but survived.

Srisompob Jitpiromsri, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, said the boys' deaths "have set off a chain reaction which will be hard to control unless authorities can bring to justice their killers".

"The insurgent movement is taking their deaths as an opportunity for revenge. Local feelings over this are running very high," he said.

The insurgents want a level of autonomy from Thailand, which annexed the region more than a century ago.

They accuse Thai authorities of riding roughshod over the local Melayu culture, as well as widespread human rights abuses.

There have been more than 40 killings since the start of the year across the three southern provinces.

Experts say the rise in deaths is linked to stalled peace talks as the Thai government struggles to curb anti-government protests in Bangkok.

Rebels, including those from the shadowy Barisan Revolusi Nasional, which is believed to command many of the grassroots fighters, have made a series of demands so that peace talks can continue.

So far, there has not been a full response from the Thai side.

Since the start of the bloodshed in 2004, dozens of children have been killed either by insurgents or security forces, and nearly 400 others have been wounded.

The United Nations Children's Fund has condemned attacks on children in Thailand's deep south.

(China Daily 02/11/2014 page10)