Mother of Thai hazing victim decries slow police probe

Thailand

Despite calls to stamp out hazing, the brutal practice remains widespread at Thai educational institutions

The mother of a Thai university student who was allegedly beaten to death by other students in May last year during a hazing ritual says that police have made little progress in the case.

Veeraphan Tamklang, a 22-year-old second-year engineering student at Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan-ok in Bangkok, died of a pulmonary embolism a week after allegedly being beaten by a dozen seniors during a brutal hazing ritual of the kind that appears to be common at many Thai educational institutions.

Manasnan Tamklang, the late student’s 59-year-old mother who lives in the northeastern province of Buri Ram, said late last week that police’s investigation into the case has been moving at a very slow pace and she has made a public plea to them to speed up their investigation.

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The anguished mother said she feared that once the case faded from public view, the investigation into her son’s death might be quietly dropped by police.

Over the years Thai police have often been accused of failing to reach conclusions in their investigations into high-profile crimes, especially when the alleged perpetrators belong to wealthy or influential families.

“The police are busy arresting and the courts are busy persecuting serious crimes such as putting stickers on posters, for which [a sentence of] three years in prison was [recently] handed down,” one commenter noted wryly, referring to the speed with which police handle alleged cases of royal defamation, a crime in Thailand.

I rejected the 500,000-baht compensation offer and asked [the alleged perpetrators] ‘Can you give back my son’s life?’ They could not answer my question

Manasnan’s plea for police came days after a 19-year-old first-year student at Rajamangala University of Technology Isan in Nakhon Ratchasima province died of injuries suffered during a brutal hazing ritual in which seniors punched freshmen repeatedly in the chest in a dry paddy field off campus.

Padyos Chonpakdi died on the way to hospital on March 13 in one of the latest cases in which persistent hazing at Thai high schools and universities have led to deaths.

Seven of the students involved, who have admitted hitting Padyos, have been charged with physical assault causing death.

The dead teenager’s father, Ekachai Chonpakdi, has said he refused to accept the 500,000 baht (US$15,000) offered last week by the families of the accused by way of compensation for the loss of his son.

“I rejected the 500,000-baht compensation offer and asked [the alleged perpetrators] ‘Can you give back my son’s life?’ They could not answer my question,” the grieving father said.

What is the point of tormenting younger students? What lessons are they supposed to learn from it?

Although activists have been calling on Thai educational authorities for years to stamp out hazing at local institutions, the practice remains widespread according to activists who collect testimonies of victims on a popular Facebook page.

In the wake of Padyos’ death, numerous Thais have taken to social media to decry hazing rituals and call on educational institutions to ensure their campuses remain free of such abuses.

“Teachers must do a lot more to end this vile practice once and for all,” one commenter said. “Students may think hazing is part of school tradition, but it is abuse and murder.”

“What is the point of tormenting younger students? What lessons are they supposed to learn from it?” noted another.

“All seniors who engage in hazing should be expelled from school immediately,” argued a third.

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