Faculties ordered closed over brawl
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Order comes after 4 students from 2 colleges get into a fight on bus in Victory Monument area
The Civil Engineering and Logistics Management departments at Rajamangala University of Technology’s Uthen Thawai campus and Pathumwan Institute of Technology’s Electrical Engineering Department will be closed temporarily as punishment for a bus brawl between students from the facilities.
The former must close for nine days and the latter for three days.
Three Uthen Thawai students and one PIT student were involved in the altercation, with a three-day penalty for each offender.
It was up to the colleges to decide when the departments would be closed, said Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec) chief Kamjorn Tatiyakavee.
The brawl occurred on Wednesday on bus No 29 in the Victory Monument area.
Authorities are hoping the punishment would prompt fellow students to stop their peers from getting into brawls, Kamjorn said.
He said he had informed the colleges of the decision.
Some 70 students attend PIT’s Electrical Engineering Department, while about 300 attend Uthen’s two departments.
Kamjorn said an institution could be closed for a semester or a year if a student was killed in a fight.
Long-term solution sought
He said it was hoped a long-term solution to the problem would come after Ohec completes its study of the solution guidelines to the issue proposed by the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (Ovec).
The Ovec has emphasised joint activities for students from the two institutions in the next academic year.
Kamjorn said a joint student-orientation ceremony and making students wear the same uniforms was also being considered.
Police have identified the students involved in Wednesday’s fracas. Uthen Thawai students are Watchapong Puritangsanto, 20, Kritsada Doung-ngern, 21, and Kitipong Naew-olo, 21.
The trio claim PIT student Atichat Rodsatra, 20, stabbed Watcharapong first and as a result the other two attacked Atichat before the three men fled into nearby Soi Rang Nam, where they were arrested.
But Atichat, who sustained head and eye wounds, said that he was sitting at the back of bus when the three Uthen Thawai students boarded it at Victory Monument and searched him until they found his PIT ring.
He claimed Watcharapong pulled a knife but he resisted and Watcharapong’s hand was cut and it erupted from there.
The students were charged with fighting on a public bus.
