Bangkok: A revenge attack for the deportation of Uighur Muslims from Thailand to China has emerged as a key focus of investigations into Monday's bombing in the Thai capital.
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A massive hunt is under way for a man wearing a yellow T-shirt who was seen in security camera video leaving a backpack on a bench at a Hindu shrine where a blast killed 22 people and wounded at least 120.
"It is quite clear that he is the perpetrator in this case," Prawut Thavornsiri, a spokesman for Thai national police, said.
Police sources said Uighur militants may be responsible for the blast, according to reports in the Bangkok Post and other Thai media.
Thailand sparked international condemnation in July when the country deported 109 Uighurs, a move human rights groups said violated international conventions.
Uighur groups also protested as some men who had been separated from their wives and children were found to have remained in detention in Thailand or been earlier sent to Turkey.
Protests forced Thailand to close its embassy and consulate in Turkey after photographs showed Uighurs being led handcuffed and hooded on to two planes by security guards.
Thai officials cited intelligence from the country's Special Branch that there would be an attack on Chinese tourists in Thailand after August 11.
Chinese were among tourists at the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok on Monday evening when a bomb packed with ball bearings exploded in the city's largest attack in years.
Grainy CCTV video shows the suspect wearing a yellow T-shirt appearing to walk casually among them before leaving the rucksack on a bench a minute before the blast.
Uighurs are an ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim minority in China's western Xinjiang region who have been waging a violent campaign for independence from Beijing.
The deported Uighurs had arrived in Thailand in 2014 claiming to be Turkish and asking to be sent to Turkey.
Other Uighurs forcibly returned to China have faced arrest and criminal prosecution which the Chinese government said was justified in their fight against separatism, religious extremism and terrorism.
China has portrayed Uighur separatists as auxiliaries of al-Qaeda but has produced little evidence to support the claim, Human Rights Watch said.
Security analysts said the Erawan Shrine attack and a second failed bombing at a Bangkok river pier used by tourists on Tuesday afternoon do not fit the pattern of the operations of known groups in Thailand.
Matthew Wheeler, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the bombing was a "new type of attack for Bangkok" that doesn't bear the marks of typical violence in the past decade from political instability or separatists.
But some analysts said an attack by violent elements of the Uighur movement outside China was unusual.
Tony Davis, a Bangkok-based analyst with IHS-Jane's, said while the attack does not match incidents in southern Thailand or Thai political groups "I don't think the Uighurs have the sophistication to pull this off."
Zachary Abuza, an expert on south-east Asian political and security issues, said "I don't buy the Uighur theory".
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has urged people not to make unfounded accusations about the bombing on social media that could inflame conflicts in the country.
The former army general who led a coup to topple Thailand's government last year bristled when asked by reporters if there were leads on suspects.
"Why are you asking now? Do you understand the word investigation … it's not like they claim responsibility."
Asked if the attack could be in retaliation for deporting Uighurs, national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung told reporters there was no evidence supporting it at the moment.
"Police are not ruling out anything including politics and the conflict of ethnic Uighurs who, before this, Thailand sent back to China," he said.
Thai security forces have increased security nationwide, fearing further attacks.
Police said the second bomb attempt on Tuesday failed only because it hit a pylon after being thrown from a bridge on to a busy footway and bounced off into the river where it exploded.
Immigration posts have been alerted to look for the slightly built suspect who wore a yellow T-shirt and black-framed glasses.
Police want to interview motorcycle taxi drivers who brought him to the shrine and took him away.
Police said the man may have been wearing a wig. They were working on the theory he was not acting alone.
