BANGKOK, June 28 (Xinhua) -- A policeman was shot dead by a drug trafficker who took his car and fled away in southern Thailand's Surat Thani Province, reports said on Friday.

The gunfight took place on Thursday night when a team of plainclothes police was pretending to take delivery of illicit drugs from suspected smugglers in the southern province.

One of the suspects fired at the police when the police tried to arrest the traffickers. One of the police was killed at the scene and the other was hit and fell to the ground.

The gunman drove the car over the fallen policeman and managed to escape.

Police found the car abandoned in bushes along a roadside and the hunt for the suspects is underway.