Fatal attack on rival students triggers 3-day closure of Uthenthawai Campus

Faculty dean Assoc Prof Thongpoon Thasiphet issued an order on Saturday instructing lecturers to only hold online classes from Sunday to Tuesday. The order specified that no student was allowed to enter the faculty during these three days.

The decision comes in the aftermath of the stabbing of a student from Pathumwan Institute of Technology (PIT) on Friday, who succumbed to injuries in hospital later.

The victim was one of the two students who were attacked by a group of young men in front of the Uthenthawai Campus. Police later said the attackers had graduated from Uthenthawai.

The dean’s order cited the “untoward incident on Friday” as the reason for holding classes online and it was being done for the safety of lecturers and students.

The order specified that if any student wanted to enter the faculty during the three days, he or she must first seek the dean’s permission through an advisor. Permission will be granted on a case-by-case basis.

The lecturers have also been instructed to record the names of the students who do not attend the online classes and report them to the dean.

Separately, Pol Maj-General Samart Promchart, chief of the Metropolitan Police Division 6, said investigators were speeding up efforts to gather evidence to seek arrest warrants for the nine suspects in the attack.

He said many of the suspects have been identified, and that the identity of the others must be carefully checked.

He declined to confirm if any of them was the injured person, identified as Nattaporn, who is being treated for hand injuries at Chulalongkorn Hospital.

“We must withhold the information for now. All I can say is that all of them used to be Uthenthawai students,” Samart said.

The PIT-Uthenthawai feud has been a long-standing, complex one, with deep roots of animosity and revenge between the students. Both vocational schools are well-known and offer similar courses, which is the source of intense competition.

In an incident on November 11, two Uthenthawai students fatally shot a PIT student in front of the Sacred Heart Convent School. A stray bullet from the shooting killed a female teacher from the school.

A subsequent police investigation revealed that former and current PIT students had organised a gang to target Uthenthawai students to seek revenge for previous deaths. Several suspects have been arrested in connection with these incidents.

On January 8 this year, some 80 students from Uthenthawai and PIT engaged in fist fights on the BTS skywalk outside MBK Centre, causing panic among shoppers. The street fight prompted Uthaithawai to close the engineering faculty for three days.