Thai cops find tunnels under temple in monk hunt
Print Edition
THAI cops have uncovered secret tunnels running underneath a space-age temple of the controversial Dhammakaya Buddhist sect, as their manhunt for an elusive elderly monk accused of massive embezzlement entered a second day.
Thousands of officers are involved in the search for the 72-year-old monk Phra Dhammachayo, who is believed to be holed up in the vast Wat Dhammakaya temple grounds on the outskirts of Bangkok.
The former abbot, who founded the breakaway Buddhist order in 1970 and has marshalled its prodigious rise, is accused of money laundering and accepting embezzled funds worth US$33 million from the jailed owner of a cooperative bank.
But in an increasingly bizarre cat-and-mouse game, cops were frustrated for a second day running as they were led by orange-robed monks through endless rooms and hallways in the 405-hectare site.
On Thursday police found a 1.5-kilometer tunnel — split into two routes — dug under the temple that dominates the site, which may have been used by the ex-abbot as a place to hide.
“It only has one entrance but it does not go outside of the temple,” Police Colonel Worranan Srilum, deputy spokesman for the DSI — Thailand’s equivalent of the FBI — said.
They also searched a sick bay used by the former abbot, but instead of finding their quarry, pulled back an orange robe covering several pillows arranged to look like a sleeping person.
“The Dhammakaya temple area is sprawling so it will have to take time to search ... we can’t find him yet, but our intelligence insists that he is still inside (the) temple,” he added.
The sweep of the powerful and ultra-rich Wat Dhammakaya temple comes after Thailand’s junta chief invoked special powers to put its sprawling compound under military control.
Temple officials say the ex-abbot is innocent and deny knowledge of his whereabouts.
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