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Acting rector Suebphong Muangchoo said he believed police techniques in probing such incidents were effective. A few years ago the campus requested their help after a similar incident. He said the police identified all seniors responsible for violence in that case.

Suebphong pleaded with seniors involved in the latest incident to confess - saying he loathed those who were still hiding, calling them "very bad persons" for their failure to come forward.

"They are all very bad, for letting down all students and now allowing the Uthen Thawai's public image to be further stained. You will be hailed by fellow students for your confession. Come clean if you did wrong, like a real man should," he added.

Education Minister Jurin Laksanavisith repeated his order for investigation into incident be completed by next week. He said all students or lecturers found to be at fault would be prosecuted  not just face disciplinary action.

Five Uthen Thawai lecturers are under an internal investigation for their roles in the incident, reportedly through their inaction to solve the problem or for encouraging the seniors to impose harsh punishment on the freshmen during the initiation ceremony.

Meanwhile, more than 70 students at the Rajabaht Institute in Loei province fainted enmasse in an initiation ceremony. A lecturer, Anusorn Uaprasert, said although the annual event involved a ghostly figure, he thought the group passout resulted from group hypnosis, and the supernatural nature of the event had nothing to do with it.

He said the students, among a group of hundreds, were preoccupied by their fear of the supposed ghost, a man who lived hundreds of years ago, and hallucinated.

However, Anusorn did not explain why many of them reportedly spoke in a nowextinct native language, and why male students spoke in a feminine voice the females in male voices while unconscious.

A local medical team and psychiatrists provided guidance for them after they recovered.