Soontree Vechanon, known for her northern dialect songs, believed the attack was resulted from her participation in anti-Thaksin rally in Bangkok.

Police was alert early Saturday morning after a staff of Soontree found the explosive in front of her house, part of which is used as a restaurant.

Santi Kamya, 29, who was staying overnight at the restaurant, was alerted when he heard a noise and suspected that something was thrown at the restaurant. But he dismissed its seriousness and did not came out to check.

"At about 6.30am, I was cleaning front porch when I found the grenade," he said.

Police said the grenade's pin was removed but it was luckily that it did not exploded.

A bomb squad said that the explosive was still new but suspected that the high level of humidity had caused the grenade to malfunction. But the squad, not taking any chances, destroyed the bomb.

Soontree told reporters that she was confident that the attack was caused by her joining at rallies led People's Alliance for Democracy in ousting caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok.

"I have been running the restaurant for almost 12 years and have never seen this kind of trouble. Earlier, I received telephone calls threatening me to stop participation in the anti-Thaksin protest. My moves have been in line with the democratic principles," she said.

Her movement has angered some local people in Chiang Mai who burnt her effigy recently, she said. Chiang Mai is Thaksin's stronghold.

She vowed to continue her protest against Thaksin. "At first, I planned not to join a discussion about Thaksin in Chiang Mai today because I would be very busy at my restaurant during the weekend. However I decided to join it after the attack," he said.

The Nation