BANGKOK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Clashes between thousands of anti-government students and red-shirt supporters Saturday left one man shot to death and five other people wounded, police said.
About 3,000 people were involved in the confrontations that started in the afternoon and went on sporadically into the evening near Ramkhamhaeng University, the Bangkok Post reported.
"A 21-year-old man was shot dead by two bullets to his left side," Boonchuay Pochantong, an official at a police station near the university, said.
Piya Utayo, a spokesman for the Center for the Administration of Peace and Order, said nearly 3,000 troops would be deployed to reinforce security in Bangkok, the Post said.
"From tonight there will be soldiers out to take care of security," the spokesman said.
The Post said gunshots and what sounded like an explosion were heard near the university about 8 p.m.
The newspaper reported a witness said he saw a man who was with a group of red-shirt guards gathered near a university entrance fire a gun into the air and also at the students.
Students reportedly smashed a taxi window and vandalized a city bus being used to transport red-shirt supporters, the Post said.
Speaking at the Democracy Monument demonstration base, Sathit Wongnongtoey, former member of Parliament and protest leader, said some police officers had removed their uniforms and put on red shirts to attack Ramkhamhaeng students.
Police in Bangkok said they would continue showing restraint amid increasingly tense confrontations between pro- and anti-government demonstrators.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called for negotiations to resolve the issues between the two sides. She said police were determined to protect property during the marches but would use force only as a last resort.
Protests took place for the seventh consecutive day in Bangkok with anti-government demonstrators calling for Shinawatra to step.
The BBC described Shinawatra as a polarizing figure who is popular in rural areas but is seen by many urban residents as a mouthpiece for her brother, the exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.
