THE street blockade at the five-star beach resort of Surin ended at 2.30pm on Thursday, with villagers giving police one week to arrest the perpetrator of a shooting incident which left a local boy dead.

Phuketwan has been told by police that the handgun involved was fired at two boys without discharging, but killed a third boy when the trigger was pulled for the third time.

The man who alleged pulled the trigger is on the run. Police said one of the boys who survived the deadly game called two emergency hotlines after his friend was shot.

The hotline operators on both calls greeted the boy's story with disbelief. Only after the parents of the two surviving boys were alerted did police treat the alarm seriously, Phuketwan was told.

At noon on Thursday, because at that stage the blockade was continuing without an apparent end in sight, a decision was made to cancel an important meeting of resort managers and tourism chiefs at the Chedi resort that evening.

About 100 local residents blocked the main road tee-junction in the five-star beach resort from 5pm on Wednesday.

The demonstration followed the fatal shooting of the boy before noon on Wednesday at a games shop, not far from Bang Tao temple.

The chief investigating officer, Police Lieutenant Colonel Somkid Kaosang, told Phuketwan on Thursday that the boy, aged 12, had allegedly been shot by the proprietor of the games shop.

The man is reported to have dumped the boy's body in a forest near Phuket airport, then fled. A warrant for his arrest has been issued.

However, the boy's family and friends wanted police to arrest the shooter immediately.

Officers told them that the law obliges them first to seek an arrest warrant, and that due process cannot be hastened.

The street protest banked up traffic for some distance at the intersection with the main road, leading down to Surin beach.

One nearby business reported that staff were two hours late for work because of the diversion.

At 2.30pm on Thursday afternoon, the protest was abandoned with police being given a week to arrest the alleged killer.

He was reported to have been in touch with the Governor of Phuket, seeking a safe surrender.

Tourists visiting Phuket, caught up in the local conflict over Wednesday and Thursday, contacted Phuketwan to try to find out what was happening.

Neighboring businesses also complained about the damage the protest was doing to the local tourism industry.

''Every day, Thais seem to blacken the tourism industry with no regard to right or wrong,'' one expat businessman said.

Island resort managers and tourism industry leaders were scheduled to meet in Surin at the Chedi resort on Thursday night to consider a marketing strategy to attract more tourists to Phuket.

But at noon, the decision was made to postpone the gathering for a week because of the blockade.

It's the second time this year that villagers on Phuket have sought to settle their problems with a large-scale protest in the streets.

The first blockade, in Kamala, inconvenienced tourists and locals for 20 hours.

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