Thai PM discusses southern border violence with security authorities

BANGKOK, May 2 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called a meeting with security authorities concerned on Thursday morning to discuss measures to cope with violent attacks in the Thai deep South and results of the latest round of peace talks between her government, through the National Security Council (NSC), and representatives of insurgents, led by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) insurgency movement. The concerned authorities include the NSC secretary-general, the armed forces chiefs, the national police chief, the interior minister, the permanent secretary for interior and the secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC), the secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) and governors of southern border provinces. The meeting was in response to a latest violent incident in which six people, including a 3-year-old boy, were closely gunned down, one by one, at a grocery shop in the Rusamelae locality in Mueang district of Pattani on Wednesday evening, only two days after the second-round peace negotiations between the NSC and the insurgent side. In Muang district of nearby Yala province, leaflets were, meanwhile, found in several locations, saying that the brutal murder of the six villagers in Pattani was a revenge for an earlier death of four insurgents. Local authorities are tracing the source of the leaflets and they have beefed up security measures in the violence-plagued Thai far South. (TNA)