The news was announced yesterday (Nov 27) by Jedtana Hemmun, Director of the DSI’s Intelligence and Crime Information Analysis Division at the Bureau of Technology and Information Inspection Center.
Mr Jedtana is leading an investigation launched by the college filing a formal complaint alleging that land the college had rights to was being claimed by an individual.
The college had cleared an area for further expansion, but soon found their efforts thwarted by their neighbour who had planted concrete poles in the ground to mark the boundary between the two plots.
The DSI team conducted a second inspection of the site yesterday, this time joined by officers from the Royal Forestry Department’s Forest Management Region 12 Office, based in Krabi.
“The data collected from today’s investigation will be presented to the Director-General of the Royal Forest Department, so that the Director-General can consider and further work on revising the details of permission [of which land the college has rights to use],” Mr Jedtana said.
“The DSI will ask officers of the Royal Forest Department to work quickly,” Mr Jedtana said.
“During the investigation, a man who presented himself as the owner of the cement posts which were installed as a boundary in an attempt to claim the land presented some documents to us,” Mr Jedtana said, without naming the individual.
“We will have to examine the document thoroughly later,” Mr Jedtana said.
According to a report by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket), Mr Jedtana admitted there were discrepancies between the actual land that the college was using and the land document presented to prove the college’s right to the land.
However, Mr Jedtana did not elaborate further to explain whether the college was already illegally on land it had no right to occupy, or whether the college had understood it had rights to land that were not supported by the land document presented.
The investigation was launched on Sept 14 following a formal request filed by Thalang Technical College Director Kochakorn Butsaraporn and Deputy Director Kanchana Tantharawatphan, as someone has sectioned off the land the college was intending to use by installing cement posts as boundary.
“The Royal Forest Department granted permission to use the land – 142 Rai 1 Ngan 47 talang wah within the boundaries of the Suan Pa Bang Kanun protected forest area – to establish the Phuket Technical College through a Cabinet Resolution in 1997,” Ms Kanchana said.
The land in question today was later designated to establish Thalang Technical College, she said.