Thai Policeman Shot Dead in Protest Clashes

Local Editor

A Thai policeman was shot dead as security forces clashed with opposition protesters during an operation to reclaim besieged government buildings in Bangkok Tuesday, resulting in dozens of injuries and arrests.

The sound of gunfire and explosions shook an area of the city's historic district just a short walk away from major tourist attractions, after riot police armed with batons, shields and helmets moved to clear rally sites.

"One policeman was shot dead and four injured," Police Lieutenant General Prawut Thavornsiri said, adding that one of the casualties was seriously injured by shrapnel from a blast.
A total of 44 people were hurt, according to the city's Erawan emergency medical center.

Demonstrators rejected a police demand to leave the area around Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's offices within one hour, a day after they poured buckets of cement onto a sandbag wall in front of a gate to the compound.
"The government cannot work here anymore," said a spokesman for the anti-government movement, Akanat Promphan.

About 100 opposition demonstrators were arrested at a different rally site at an energy ministry complex in the capital on charges of violating a state of emergency, National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattanatabut said.
It was the first time that so many protesters have been detained since mass rallies seeking to overthrow Yingluck and her administration began more than three months ago.

The protesters are demanding Yingluck resign and hand power to a temporary, unelected government that would carry out reforms to tackle corruption and alleged misuse of public funds before new elections are held.
Thailand has been periodically rocked by mass demonstrations staged by rival protest groups since a controversial military coup in 2006 that ousted then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra -Yingluck's brother.

Twelve people have died and hundreds of others have been injured in political violence linked to the latest round of rallies, which have been targeted by a series of grenade attacks and drive-by shootings by unidentified perpetrators.
Demonstrators have blocked major intersections in a self-styled "shutdown" of the capital, although attendance has dropped sharply compared with December and January when at the peak tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of people took to the streets.

So far the authorities have not announced any plan to clear those road junctions in the retail and commercial center.
Demonstrators prevented 10,000 polling stations from opening in the election, affecting several million people.
Yingluck's opponents say she is a puppet for her brother Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon-turned-politician who fled overseas in 2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction.

'Pro-Thaksin parties have triumphed at the ballot box for more than a decade, helped by strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team