Udon Thani police are hunting thieves stealing corpses from graveyards, probably for use in superstitious rituals local people believe.
The two corpses, a woman who died during pregnancy and a man killed by a gunman, had been stolen a few days before the Songkran festival, said Udon Thani’s Prachak Silpakhom police station chief Nawara Channawan.
The hunt followed a complaint by two women, Anong Hipkaew, 65, and Bualee Chuwiang, 64, of Non Sa village in Prachak Silpakhom district that body snatchers had dug up their children's graves.
The two elderly women had gone to the graveyard in their community on April 12 to clean up the burial sites of their loved ones before the Songkran festival. They were shocked to find the graves desecrated and one corpse missing, along with the head of another corpse, said Pol Col Nawara.
One of the bodies was that of Mrs Bualee's daughter Sirirat Akkharat, 26, who died when five months pregnant and was buried in the graveyard on May 15 last year. Thieves had stolen her head, leaving the rest of her body in the grave.
The second corpse belonged to Mrs Anong's son Nopparat Hipkaew, 32, who was shot dead in another district and his body buried on Nov 5 last year. The coffin containing his body had been stolen.
The district police chief said police handling the case would today question relatives to glean further information.
Police also had information that two more bodies, young siblings aged 8 and 9 years, had also been stolen from another graveyard in nearby Kumphawapi district. The two children had drowned last month.
Pol Col Nawara said the same grave robbers were believed responsible, and police would hunt them down.
Police and local people believed the bodies were being taken for use in superstitious rituals.
Pol Lt Col Chamlong Panchana, chief investigator for Prachak Silpakhom, said on Thursday that local residents told police that several months ago a monk aged 60-65 years, claiming to be from Buri Ram, had persuaded people betting on the lottery into taking him to find the bodies of those who died recently for use in black magic rites. He said they would be rewarded with winning lottery numbers, Khaosod Online reported.
Shortly afterwards a corpse had been stolen and the monk had vanished, local people said.
He believed the bodies of the two siblings drowned in Kumphawapi might have been stolen for superstitious rites. There could be an organised gang stealing bodies, Pol Lt Col Chamlong said.