YALA (Thailand), Feb 19: A 46-year-old Buddhist man was shot and then set ablaze as he tried to escape an attack by suspected Islamic separatists on Tuesday in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south, police said.

Netr Noh-uma, a highway department official, was shot as he was riding a motorcycle with a colleague in Pattani, one of three provinces along the Malaysian border hit by four years of separatist unrest, police said.

A 34-year-old man was riding the motorcycle with him. He was also shot but managed to run away, police said.

Netr was too seriously wounded to escape. Police said that when he fell off the motorcycle, two militants doused him with petrol and set him on fire.

“They burned him alive after he was shot and fell from his motorbike.—AFP