Four residents were injured when a buried bomb targeting police officers exploded in Rangae district of Narathiwat on Saturday.
The bomb was planted under a roadside stall on the Rangae-Dusongyor Road in Galiza village in the southern province. It went off when a police pickup truck passed the area, said Pol Lt Col Nathat Chairat, a senior investigator at the Rangae police station, who was alerted at 11.35am on Saturday.
The impact of the explosion slightly hurt a man who was cutting grass in the area and three other residents travelling on a motorcycle. The injured were taken to a nearby hospital. The windshield of the police vehicle was broken.
Pieces of the home-made bomb were scattered over the road. The bomb was stuffed into a 20-kilogramme coking gas cylinder and detonated by radio, said police bomb disposal officers.
Pol Lt Amornsak Ngok-khao, attached to the Chanae district police station, said he was travelling in the police vehicle driven by Pol Sgt Warit Tormae when the bomb exploded. The officers had just returned from taking two inmates to the provincial court for detention.
Police believed the blast was aimed at the officers.