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Kijja Aliisloh, the deputy secretarygeneral of the association, said the authorities do not have any real evidence to charge the majority of the villagers being held under the Emergency Law.

Kijja also accused the Army of forcing hundreds of innocent villagers to join Armycreated job training projects, suggesting that such schemes were an Army stunt to boost its own image rather then help the local community.

Thai authorities have arrested more than 350 people this month in a massive crackdown on separatist insurgents in violenceprone districts in the deep South.

But officials in the restive region, as well as local residents, said the shakedown has forced insurgent cells to relocate to other districts. They say the 350 suspects who have been taken into custody are merely sympathisers and innocent villagers.

Under a twoyearold state of emergency in the South, which was extended last week for another three months, suspects can be held without charge for 30 days and denied access to a lawyer for three days after their arrest.

Of the hundreds who have been detained, only 15 have actually been charged, according to Sunai Phasuk, a researcher for the New Yorkbased Human Rights Watch.

Sunai said he has received reports that the interrogation by military officials involved torture. "So these [cases] need to be first of all resolved very quickly, and access to lawyers needs to be granted immediately. That is the only way to guarantee a certain level of transparency," he said.

Army spokesman Colonel Acra Tiproch dismissed the allegations of torture and said the military was offering detained suspects counselling and job training.

Srisompob Jitpiromsri, a professor at Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani, said the number of insurgent attacks this months has dropped dramatically but warned that much more has to be done to end the unrest.

The state has to turn to measures like fair trials and reliable forensic testing in order to build confidence among the people, he said.

In Yala's Yaha district, two gunmen on a motorbike shot Mahama Cheni, 46, killing him instantly, while Abdulkadir Yahor, 44, who was riding pillion on the same motorbike as Mahama, was seriously wounded.

More than 2,400 people have been killed since the unrest began in southern Thailand in January 2004, with thousands more injured.