Police seized a large cache of rocket-propelled and hand grenades in Chon Buri province yesterday.
Police examine 27 rocket-propelled grenades and five boxes containing 150 hand grenades found by a resident in Chon Buri’s Muang district. The find comes amid a military crackdown on illegal weapons. JERDSAK SAENGTHONGCHAROEN
The seizure comes amid a nationwide military crackdown on illegal weapons.
The cache — 27 RPG and 150 hand grenades — were found abandoned in a banana plantation near Ban Suan Udomwitthaya School in Muang district's tambon Ban Suan. The hand grenades were stored in wooden boxes.
An examination by a bomb disposal unit found the grenades in good condition.
The owner of the weapons probably dumped them there after becoming nervous about the crackdown on illegal firearms and explosives, said Pol Maj Gen Thanet Phinmueang, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 9.
Police investigators are looking at footage obtained from nearby security cameras which they hope will lead them to who dumped the explosives.
The grenades were spotted by chance yesterday morning by Thongchai Sinphali, a villager, looking for banana blossoms.
The seizure of the 177 grenades yesterday was the latest in a series carried out since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) announced its crackdown on illegal arms late last month.
The grenades were likely bought from traders at the Cambodian border, said Maj Gen Nat Intharacharoen, head of the 14th Military Circle in Chon Buri.
It seems, the owners preferred to abandon the grenades rather than risk arrest by the NCPO, he said.
Elsewhere, police yesterday discovered about 30 rounds of ammunition for a 11-mm calibre handgun from a drain outside a condominium in tambon Tasai, in Nonthaburi's Muang district.
Chatchai Thammakit, a gardener at the condominium, told the police he found the ammunition after opening the drain to find the source of a water blockage. He found the drain blocked by the ammunition.
In Pathum Thani’s Khlong Luang district, police also seized a .38 pistol from the home of Pol Sub-Lt Somchai Son-ubon, a red-shirt co-leader and a former Khlong Luang Municipality councillor, following a search.
Officers at the scene questioned one of his daughters since Pol Sub-Lt Somchai was not home at the time of the search.
Meanwhile, police and military units seized 407 guns, eight bombs, 1,028 rounds of ammunition and more than 97,000 methamphetamine pills in a crime suppression drive in 12 upper northeastern provinces,.
A total 3,413 suspects were arrested in connection with the seized weapons and drugs, according to Pol Lt Gen Detnarong Suthichanbancha, acting commander of Provincial Police Region 4.
He said the crackdown was carried out in accordance with the NCPO policy to return peace and happiness to the people after years of political conflict and violence, he said.
In Bangkok, a worker discovered an old unexploded World War II-era bomb, at the construction site of the Bang Sue electric railway station (Red Line) in Chatuchak district.
An Air Force bomb disposal team identified it as a GP500 (general purpose) bomb believed to be the same type as the 500-pound bomb which exploded and killed eight people in the Lat Plakhao area in early April after workers at a junk recycling shop tried to cut it open.
The disposal team said the bomb was not active. The experts also warned construction workers to be on the lookout for more bombs.
The district was heavily bombed by the allies during World War II.