Sutin summons Army chief over alleged assaults of conscripts

Defence Minister Sutin Klungsang said on Sunday that he had summoned Army chief Gen Charoenchai Hinthao to a meeting on Monday after a viral Facebook post claimed that conscripts had been abused by drunk superiors in Chiang Mai.

Sutin said he wanted to instruct the Army chief to assure conscripts that they would no longer be abused by their commanders, as there have been similar incidents in army camps.

Sutin was referring to a post on the Sai Mai Tong Rod (Survive ) Facebook page on Saturday. The post showed a photo of 10 conscripts standing naked in front of an army sergeant.

A woman who posted the photo recounted in the post that her brother and nine other conscripts from Adisorn Camp of 25th Cavalry Battalion of 4th Cavalry Regiment were deployed to be stationed at the Nolae base in Chiang Mai’s Fang district, where they were often abused by a drunk sergeant and his assistants.

In the recent abuse, she alleged, the conscripts were ordered to stand naked in the rain for six hours and were kicked, hit and stomped on repeatedly by a drunk sergeant.

She alleged that when the unit commander was drunk, he often woke up conscripts in the middle of the night to be abused.

 
 

After the sharing of the post, the Army announced on Saturday it would investigate the incident.

Sutin said on Sunday that similar incidents had happened several times, so he wanted the Army chief to assure him that it would not happen again.

Sutin said he would instruct the Army chief to bring the wrongdoer in this case to justice as soon as possible.