KRABI- Eight members of a family were slain and three others gravely wounded by gunmen wearing military-style clothing who demanded to search a village headman's house in Ao Luk district overnight.
The murdered victims included three children.
According to police, there were six or seven men in the group, all wearing camouflage outfits.
They arrived at the house of Vorayut Sanglang, head of village 1 in tambon Ban Klang, in two vehicles around 4pm on Monday and demanded entry to search it. All family members were warned not to try to leave.
The gunmen then waited. About 8pm Vorayut arrived home. He and the other members of the family were handcuffed and blindfolded. Around midnight they were killed. Most were shot in the head, Pol Capt Suwit Kaewpreecha, deputy chief investigator at Ao Luk, told reporters.
The killers left, taking Vorayut's Toyota car with them.
Police called to the scene found six people dead inside the house - two men, two women and two girls. Six other people had serious gunshot wounds and were rushed to Ao Luk Hospital.
Vorayut and a third girl were pronounced dead shortly after, Chaiwut Buathong, chief of Ao Luk district, said.
The three other wounded people, a woman and two girls, remained in hospital in a serious condition.
Pol Col Kritsanat Wongklaharn, chief of Ao Luk police, said a hunt had been launched for the killers and investigators were looking to discover the motive for the mass murder.
Detectives from the Provincial Police Region 8 said on the condition of anonymity that the murder might result from Vorayut’s roles as a village head.
Earlier he led people in tambon Ban Klang to oppose a rock grinding concession of a company. He also took legal action against eight people who encroached on a public pond covering 12 rai and accused the head of a tambon administration organisation of malfeasance.
According to the sources, the gunmen did not simply ambush Vorayut but waited for hours before killing the family possibly because they might try to get some information from him or some evidence in his house. Brutality in the murder apparently resulted from a personal conflict.
Detectives also found it unusual for murderers to also steal the car of their victim. There might be some evidence relating to the massacre motive in the car, the sources said.
Besides, almost all surveillance cameras on nearby routes were out of work. Detectives assumed that the application software of the cameras might be hacked.