Fatal Explosion in central Bangkok outside Hindu temple kills 27, several injured. Islamists are suspected, no one took responsibility.
HENB | Bangkok | Aug 17, 2015:: A motorcycle bomb exploded on Monday just outside a Hindu shrine in the centre of the Thai capital, killing at least 27 people, police and a rescue worker said.
The blast was near the Erawan shrine at a major Bangkok intersection, police said.
“All I can say now is there has been an explosion in central Bangkok involving a motorcycle bomb,” deputy national police chief Aek Angsananond told Reuters. He said there had been fatalities, but could not confirm details.
A policeman at the scene and a rescue worker said in first hand report that 12 people had been killed. Media put the number of the wounded at 20.
There have been unconfirmed reports of a second bomb near the explosion site. A bomb squad is said to be in the process of deactivating it, Singapore newspaper The Straits Times reported.
At latest, as per TOI, death toll touched at 27 and 78 injured.
Bangkok has been relatively peaceful since a military coup ousted a civilian government in May last year after several months of sometime violent political protests against the previous government.
However, there has been some tension in recent months as the ruling junta has made clear it may not hold elections until 2017 and wants a constitution that will allow some type of emergency rule to take the place of an elected government.
Car bombs are almost unknown in Bangkok, but have been used in southern Thailand, where a Muslim separatist insurgency has been flaring for several years.
Previous terrorist attacks in the country include two bombings at night markets in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, in 2010, and a series of explosions in Bangkok in 2012 that injured five, which Thai authorities said were a failed attempt by Iranian Muslim nationals to assassinate Israeli diplomats.
Some political experts opine it as a vengeance of Indian PM Modi’s penetration in UAE or a far retaliation of ISIS local modules when it is restricted in India. Hindus, Jews, Christians and Buddhists are the prime targets of the ISIS and other Islamist modules.
__inputs from AFP, AP and Reuters.