Klong Toey market vendors on Tuesday burned coffins and straw figures of the director of the Port Authority, the acting director and head of the new market concessionaire,Legal Professional, in the long-running dispute over the redevelopment of the famous market.
They had planned a cremation on the road at Na Ranong intersection for the two market security guards shot dead last month, Kanok Sukkaeo and Suksant Seehalert.
In the morning, about 100 vendors blocked the Na Ranong intersection to prepare the site for the cremation ceremony. They abandoned the plan and instead burned their opponents in effigy, and the coffins, after police warned a public cremation would be illegal.
The bodies were taken for cremation at Wat Klong Toey Nai in the evening.
The conflict between the market vendors and Legal Professional, the new contractor for the market, has raged since last year.
The vendors have occupied one side of Ratchadaphisek road beside the market since October in protest against the decision by the Port Authority of Thailand, owner of the land on which the market sits, to award the company the management concession. They claim they are being forced out of the market.
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- Writer: BangkokPost.com
