BANGKOK, June 27 (Xinhuanet) -- A former deputy village chief in southern Thailand was decapitated by local insurgents a few hours before Thai prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra toured the region on Sunday.

    The victim was found beheaded by knife on Sunday morning around 6:00 a.m. in the Saiburi district of the Pattani Province, which lies some 1,000 kilometers south of Bangkok and close to Malaysia to the south.

    Authorities were now carrying on related investigation and suspected the crime was from hands of insurgents responsible for the region's violence in the past months, local police said.

    Thaksin was expected to arrive in Pattani late on the same day to attend a local products exhibition and football tournament opening, which is part of the government's plan to tackle the security problems through improving the local economy and integration.

    This is the second time in two months that Thaksin has visited the country's Muslim-dominated southernmost stretch, which has witnessed unabated violence claiming almost 300 lives since the beginning of this year.

    Attributing the region's spiraling violence to both separatists and Mafia, interest groups and corrupt politicians, the Thaksin cabinet also noted that the lagged local economy made insurgents' recruitment more easily.

    Local people also reportedly complained that their culture hasn't been given enough attention by the authorities.

    Home to most of Thailand's small pocket of Muslim population, the south came under the direct rule of central government in 1902and since then has witnessed separatist movement until the late 1980's.

    The region has also been disturbed by sporadic violence createdby gangsters grouping with remaining separatists in past years.

    However, violence in the past several months was all aimed at government places and targeted a variety of officials, policemen, soldiers, monks and civilians of both Buddhism and Muslim. Enditem¡¡