The concern voiced just a few days ago by Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya that the "angel child" or luk thep dolls might be used to smuggle drugs on board a commercial plane has been proven to be true.
On Monday, Chiang Mai police, received a tip that a drug trafficking gang was to deliver an unspecified amount of methamphetamine tablets hidden inside a luk thep doll. The doll, stuffed in a handbag, was to be handed to a buyer to later be carried on board a plane at Chiang Mai international airport.
Police found the suspicious bag left at a passenger rest pavilion at the airport's car park and laid in wait for someone to show up to pick it up. After several hours of waiting, the police decided to seize the bag in which a beautifully decorated luk thep doll was found. Stuffed inside the doll were 200 ya ba pills.
Pol Maj Gen Prayad Boonsri, deputy commissioner of the 5th regional police bureau, said that the seizure of drugs stuffed inside the doll was the first case of its kind in Thailand since the dolls became the latest craze several months ago.
The obsession with the dolls, and the belief that they possess supernatural powers, is no different than other obsessions of quite a few superstitious Thais. Buyers of new cars have them anointed for good luck in the hope they will be safe from fatal car accidents.
Followers of the Dhammakaya temple made big donations to the temple in exchange for a small Buddha image inscribed with their names that is placed on the upper row of a gallery so that, in their after life, their spirits would ascend to the higher levels of heaven. Examples abound of Thais' association with superstitious practices.
This latest fad would have been left alone like other forms of superstitious practice which have been completely ignored for years, even by the Sangha Supreme Council.
The announcement by Thai Smile Airways, a low-cost airline affiliated with Thai Airways International, to accommodate the wish of some owners of the dolls who do not want to stow them in the cargo bay by offering seats for the infant-like dolls appears to have gone a step too far, even though it is understood that the unconventional service is purely business.
But authorities concerned think otherwise. The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) deserves praise for acting quickly to curb the airline's special service for the luk thep dolls, deemed unbelievable if not insensible.
CAAT director Chula Sukmanop said on Tuesday that the dolls will initially be classified as luggage, not humans, and, hence, airlines cannot be allowed to sell tickets under the dolls' names, only under their owners' names.
Hopefully, the CAAT's stance on this issue will be accepted by all airlines.
Surprisingly though, both the National Office of Buddhism and the Sangha Supreme Council have jumped on the CAAT's bandwagon with promises to look into the practice of monks who carry out rituals to bless the dolls and to determine whether the practice constitutes a breach of the monastic code of conduct.
Although the move by the two Buddhist governing bodies is welcomed, it is a case of too little, too late. Malpractice and violations of the monastic code of conduct by monks at all levels have been going on unchecked for decades as evidenced by countless press reports. And yet barely anything has been done to fix the problems while the senior monks are indulged in complacency and are oblivious to what is happening around them.