Student activist Sirawith “Ja New” Seritiwat on Monday filed a police complaint against soldiers who arrested him in a Hollywood-esque “abduction” on Wednesday night, but the troops said they were just doing their job.
The leader of the New Democracy Movement (NDM) and fifth-year student at Thammasat University filed the petition with Pol Col Prasert Wankaew of Khlong Luang police station in Pathum Thani.
Four masked men in camouflage uniforms whisked Mr Sirawith away in an unmarked pickup truck with a covered licence plate outside Thammasat's Rangsit campus at 10.30pm on Wednesday. NDM posted security camera footage of the kidnapping on its Facebook page.
In his complaint, Mr Sirawith said the officers did not show him an arrest warrant and took him somewhere besides the police station. As such, his detention was illegal, the student asserted, adding that officers physically assaulted him.
Pol Col Manas Nakhonsri said the men who apprehended Mr Sirawith were soldiers attached to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment (King's Guard) and had met police investigators at the station. The soldiers said they made the arrest under the authority of Section 44 of the interim constitution.
Pol Col Manas said Mr Sirawith was still able to lodge his complaint and police would interrogate all concerned parties and clarify further details to him.
Mr Sirawith is one of the six student activists who had outstanding arrest warrants after they were summoned, but failed to report, to Thon Buri Railway police station twice to face charges of illegal political assembly.
In a video clip posted on NDM's Facebook page, Mr Sirawith said after being forced into the truck the men blindfolded him and drove him to an unknown location, where he was dragged through a field before being forced to kneel. Officers then insulted him while asking questions. They pounded him in the head and back and kicked him. He also said the officer poked him with a hard object which he suspected was the barrel of a gun.
He was later taken to Nimit Mai police station. Mr Sirawith's three friends and student activists were arrested hours later when they came to visit him. The group was released on Thursday morning after the Bangkok Military Court turned down a police request for their detention.
NCPO spokesman Col Winthai Suvaree strongly denied the assault allegations and said the student activist had become increasingly provocative, forcing the junta to act.