Czech checks bag bandit and bites back

PHUKET: Authorities in neighboring Phang Nga province are revamping registration procedures for Burmese migrant workers while closely monitoring their activities after a worker attempted to rob a foreign dive instructor yesterday.

Provincal governor Yiamsuriya Phalusuk said measures to be taken include more police patrols and possibly stricter regulations on workers traveling at night. Any Thais or employers found to provide shelter for workers would also face arrest.

Thawat Niranartwarodom, an adviser to the provincial tourism group, said he would ask for help from police and a local naval unit to provide joint security teams to patrol local tourist sites. The timing and cost of the patrols would be decided later, he said.

At 7pm yesterday, Takua Pa police received a complaint from Czech national Miloslava Shimanova, who works as a dive instructor in the tourist resort of Khao Lak. She said she had been assaulted and almost robbed by a man. Police later apprehended a Burmese migrant worker identified only as ‘Khao’.

The suspect denied that he attempted to rob Shimanova, but his thumb had a bite wound, which was consistent with the victim’s report that she bit the attempted robber during a five-minute struggle. She said the man tried to snatch her purse and pushed her down to the ground.

Reports of crimes committed by Burmese laborers in Phuket province are rare, but stories of crimes against them have been quite prominent, and growing in number, in the local media over the past 10 years.

— Nation / Gazette News Pool