Police Hunt Reporter-Stabbing Robbers

Police are gathering evidence in a bid to locate two people who seriously wounded a newsman in an attempted robbery early Tuesday.

The stabbing took place on Soi Suea Utis Yai in Bangkok's Chatuchak district.

Suwat Panjawong, 29, was stabbed in the neck while he was trying to resist the robbery.

A witness said the suspects looked very similar and arrived at the spot on the same motorcycle.

Although the robbers wore crash helmets, at least two witnesses and Suwat saw their facial features.

"We are creating sketches of [the suspects]," Paholyothin Police Station superintendent Pol Colonel Chatree Kanjanakanti said yesterday.

He said investigators expected to make arrests soon.

Suwat was being treated at the Lat Phrao Hospital on Tuesday. Representatives of the Thai Journalists Association and the Crime Reporter & Photographer Association visited him and offered some financial aid.

In the wake of the attack, the Metropolitan Police Bureau has stepped up patrols in deserted corners of the capital.

"We also plan to ask the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to install more security cameras," said Deputy Metropolitan Police commissioner Maj-General Parinya Jansuriya.