THE NATION: 980824 (r)

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Headlines 

      Boy may uncover
      begging gang

      AYUTTHAYA -- A 13-year-old boy sent
      police into a frenzy Sunday after he claimed
      he had escaped from a gang which
      abducted children and amputated their
      limbs to force them into begging. 

      The boy claimed the gang amputated either
      a hand or a leg or even gouged out an eye
      of abducted children before forcing them to
      beg. 

      However, police have so far failed to locate
      the house in Nong Khai's Muang district the
      boy claimed he had been living in with his
      parents before being abducted. 

      ''The boy gave conflicting accounts to each
      interrogator. He told one interrogator that
      he had been sent to Sungai Kolok in
      Narathiwat and then told another that he
      had been sent to Ratchaburi,'' Pol Lt Pisanu
      Binta of Ayutthaya's Muang district police
      station said. 

      ''Our bosses have told us to pay attention to
      the case. We can say that there is a serious
      danger to society if things such as the boy
      described really happened.'' 

      Thassanai Chamsungnern, 28, an official of
      a private foundation in Ayutthaya, told the
      police that he had found the boy looking
      scared at the provincial railway station. 

      He said the boy had begged for food,
      saying he had escaped from the gang
      which had abducted him from Nong Khai
      while he was walking home. 

      Police said the boy, who appeared to have
      been drugged, could not remember the van
      he claimed he had been forced into. 

      Police quoted the boy as saying that he had
      first been taken to Ratchaburi, where he
      had seen several children of his age having
      limbs amputated or eyes gouged out. The
      boy himself was not injured. 

      Police said the boy claimed he had been
      sent to Bangkok but had escaped and
      taken a train to Ayutthaya. 

      The boy said his father was an assistant
      village headman named Malai Intanai and
      his mother was called Chaluay. 

      He was put under the care of the provincial
      public welfare office. 

      The Nation