KALASIN: A farmer has confessed to having dumped the bodies of two brothers in the Chi River in Khong Chai district after they were electrocuted at his farm.
Samruam Mekwan, 74, of Khong Chai district, was apprehended shortly after the two bodies were discovered in the Chi River in this northeastern province on Sunday.
The victims, identified as Niwat Assayo, 35, and his younger brother Wakkhi, 24, of Ban Tha Tum in Muang district of Maha Sarakham, sustained burns consistent with those caused by electric shocks on their bodies.
Pol Maj Gen Tinnarat Phetpansri, the Kalasin police chief, said an investigation found that while the two victims were looking for crabs in a paddy field at Ban Non Daeng village in Khong Chai district near the river, they were electrocuted by a live electrical line the farmer had set up.
Police later took Mr Samruam for questioning.
The 74-year-old rice field owner allegedly admitted he had put the two dead men in a pushcart and dumped the bodies into the river near his village.
He told police that the wire was put up to prevent rats from destroying rice seedlings and that he normally sent electricity through it at night.
He turned off the power at around 3am on Sunday. After going to his paddy field, he found the two dead men. Fearing prosecution, he put the bodies in the pushcart and dumped them in the river, said Mr Samruam.
Pol Maj Gen Tinnarat said the farmer had been charged with recklessness causing deaths and concealment of the bodies.
The police chief warned farmers to use other ways to keep rats away from their paddy fields as using electric wires could endanger humans.
A paddy field with an electric wire in Khong Chai district, Kalasin. (Photo by Yongyuth Phuphuangphet)