A young woman has accused a taxi driver of slashing her with a blade and robbing her of cash and other items in Bangkok’s Bang Kapi district after she hired him to take her home from a pub in the early hours of Wednesday.
Thongpakai Suksrirat arrived at Lat Phrao police station with blood flowing down her arms and filed a complaint about 3.45am.
The young woman told police that she had been attacked and robbed by the driver of a taxi.
She had been at a pub in Ratchada 18 area. When it closed she waved down a taxi to take her back to her apartment room in Serithai area around 3am.
She told the driver to stop at a bank near Nida intersection as she wanted to transfer money to a friend. The driver said he needed to urinate first. He stopped, got out of the cab and suddenly opened the door to the back passenger seat where she was sitting, Ms Thongpakai told police.
She said he ordered her to give him her handbag. She refused and he tried to snatch it from her. At the same time she felt pain in her arms, as if she had been cut by something sharp.
He repeatedly attacked her, finally tearing the handbag from her grasp before she managed to push him away with her foot and flee from the cab, she said. The cabbie then drove quickly away.
She told police her handbag contained 14,000 baht in cash, three ATM cards and her ID card.
Later on Wednesday, Ms Thongpakai posted a message on her Facebook account warning women against travelling alone.
Photos of her with bloodied arms were posted on her Facebook page and quickly went viral online. By 3.40pm the story had over 17,850 shares.
Facebook user Thongpakai Suksrirat posts a warning to women about the danger of travelling alone. (Photo taken from Thongpakai Suksrirat's Facebook page)