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Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33580, 8 July 1974, Page 13

Heavily-armed riot police have tightened a cordon around a battered Bangkok police station where riots have cost 25 lives, N.Z.P.A.Reuter reported. The photograph shows a policeman inspecting the bodies of several youths killed during the rioting. Policemen in utility vehicles patrolled the maze

of streets in the colourful Chinatown district where the battles erupted on Wednesday night after police arrested a Chinese taxidriver for illegal parking. Crowds gathered and three nights of rioting and sniper fire followed. After the main fighting died down, the Ministry of Public Health reported that the three nights of rioting

had resulted in 25 deaths, including two policemen. It was the fiercest rioting in Bangkok since student demonstrations toppled the Thai military Government last October. The Plabplachai police station, the scene of the latest bloody battles, is staffed mainly by ethnic Thai police in a vastly Sino-Thai neighbourhood, a district lined with open-

fronted shops that are normally open 16 hours a day. Police said the majority of people killed, injured and arrested in the fighting were young Chinese. The Bangkok Police Commissioner (Mr Narong Mahanond) said the fighting was an “emotional outburst” and other Government officials have said it was not a coup attempt but the work of hooligans.