A police bomb squad on Tuesday abandoned their plan to collect evidence at the scene of an attack on a post manned by anti-government security guards at an entry to Lumpini Park after being warned off by the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC).
Farmers and anti-government protesters dump unmilled rice from lorries at the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives on Tuesday, in a rally led by Luang Pu Buddha Issara. (Photo by Tawatchai Kemkumnerd)
Pol Col Kamthorn Ouicharoen, chief of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, called off the assignment after being told by the PDRC that the area was not ready for police to enter.
Police will again seek the access to the area on Wednesday, he added.
The police bomb team tried to get to the scene after a grenade exploded near at a tent sheltering protest guards near Gate 4 to the park on Rama IV Road around 5.20am on Tuesday. One man was hurt by the explosion and taken to hospital.
Meanwhile, anti-government protest guards will join police and soldiers jointly manning checkpoints around their rally site in Lumpini, according to Thaworn Saenneam, a PDRC core leader. This follows several attacks over the past week.
Police and protesters are seriously at odds. The PDRC has accused police of serving the caretaker government, exclusively, and not investigating the repeated violent attacks on protesters.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said on Monday night he had decided not to seek police help after grenades, one of them an M79, were fired at his house in the Phutthamonthon area. ''I know police cannot arrest the attackers. So why should I bother?'' he told the crowd at the park on Monday night.
He said bombs would not deter the protesters, who would not end their campaign to unseat caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her caretaker cabinet.
Issara Somchai, a co-leader also facing an arrest warrant on murder charges, said he expected more violence this month and linked it to political moves and implicating caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
''The violence could escalate this month given that there are several issues coming to an end, including the National Anti-Corruption Commission's decision on the prime minister, the future of the 2-trillion-baht infrastructure fund and the fate of the Feb 2 election, which could be voided,'' he said in a message posted on his Facebook page.
The PDRC also decided to halt a protest rally attacking businesses with connections to the Shinawatra family.
It announced on Tuesday there would be no protest and Mr Suthep stayed out of the limelight after the explosion at Lumpini and another near the Chaeng Watthana rally site overnight.
Its main target since the end of the campaign to ''shutdown'' Bangkok has been Shinawatra Tower 3 on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, the hedquarters of SC Assets, the property development firm owned by the Shinawatra family and run by Ms Yingluck before she stepped down to enter politics under the Pheu Thai Party banner.
The second main PDRC group, led by Phra Luang Buddha Issara, did rally again on Tuesday, with the monk leading his supporters and farmers under Veera Rungruang's leadership on 10 buses and two 10-wheel trucks fully loaded with unmilled rice from the monk's camp site on Chaeng Watthana Road to the Agricultural Extension Department on Phahon Yothin Road.
They demanded the caretaker government to set up a fund to provide welfare for rice farmers who have not been paid for many months for grain pledged to the government at prices well over the market price.
They then crossed crossed the highway to the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, which handled payments, and the trucks dumped the unmilled rice in the bank compound and the protestes demanded money from the sales of rice and protested against slow payments for farmers struggling to pay their bills.
An M79 grenade also landed on the road in front of Lotus Chaeng Watthana around 11pm Monday but no one was injured. The location is around 500 metres away from the PDRC rally site and not far from a checkpoint operated jointly by the police and the army.