TAK: Provincial police are investigating a complaint aired on a live Facebook broadcast by a woman claiming Phop Phra police station was deserted when she and dozens of sugarcane growers went there to file a complaint about loan fraud on Saturday.
The video is still circulating on social media.
Phop Phra police posted an explanation on the Royal Thai Police social media centre page, insisting there actually was an officer there at the time, working in a different room. The police investigator on duty and responsible for taking complaints was having lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Pol Maj Gen Parinya Wisetthadakul, chief of the Tak provincial police, said on Monday his deputy, Pol Col Manas Sornpraphan, would lead the investigation into the accusation.
They would start by speaking with the people complaining in the video clip about the alleged no-show at Phop Phra on Jan 27.
In the video an unnamed woman, identified by Big Krian online news Facebook page as a Thai PBS reporter, said she and about 50 others were at Phop Phra police station, and it was deserted.
The camera panned to show an empty room without a police officer present. She said it was about 11am on Saturday.
The woman said the people present needed to see the police investigator on duty to file a complaint about being misled into signing agreements acknowledging debts they had not incurred.
After waiting about an hour without being able to speak to anyone, she decided to tell the public via a Facebook live broadcast that there still was no one at the station.
She interviewed the people waiting at the station to lay complaints why they were being sued and forced to pay off debts they had not incurred.
Each held a piece of paper stating the amount of their supposed debts.
Some were introduced by the woman in the video as Hmong sugarcane growers, who said they were being forced to pay millions of baht to a company with which they had signed agreements acknowledging debts ranging from 9 million baht to 51 million baht.
They said they were lured into believing that by signing the agreements with the company, they would be exempt from paying their actual debts incurred through contract sugarcane farming for the company.
They insisted it was not possible they could have incurred such huge amounts of debt.
On Monday, as the controversy made headlines, the official Facebook page of the Royal Thai Police social media centre responded by posting an explanation given by Pol Col Anothai Jindamanee, chief of Phop Phra police station.
He said the on duty investigator, Pol Capt Pipat Rit-ongrak, was having lunch at a nearby restaurant at the time the woman broadcast her live Facebook complaint.
Pol Snr Sgt Maj Lersak Siwong was working in a different room at the police station but was not authorised to handle complaints. He had contacted Pol Capt Pipat, who rushed back to the station, met the visitors and took their complaints, Pol Col Anothai said.