A day after the Thai government bombed the restive south with paper doves as a peace gesture, militants exploded two bombs injuring a solider and a civil servant. The police said the first explosion occurred at a gathering point for police and military personnel in Narathiwat, one of three Muslim-dominated southern provinces rocked by a separatist insurgency that has left more than 550 people dead this year, including as many as three at the weekend. The explosion took place in Rangae district injuring a soldier. About three hours later, a second bomb blew up at the side of the road some 800 meters from the site of the first explosion, lightly wounding a district official, according to the policeman. "We are investigating, but it was likely to have been a remote-control bomb," he said. In the weekend's violence, a retired chief prosecutor from Pattani province was gunned down at his shrimp farm on Sunday, while a policeman was killed in Narathiwat on Saturday evening when his patrol unit was ambushed. A 64-year-old grocer, Suthon Sridaeng, was shot dead at his shop in Pattani on Sunday. Security forces also found and defused a bomb near the border with Malaysia just before the government used 50 aircraft to scatter some 120 million paper birds across southern Thailand on King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 77th birthday. The paper birds carried messages of peace. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra signed one of the paper birds, promising a scholarship or job to whoever found the bird with his signature.