Government spokesman Lt-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd hit back at Wat Dhammakaya for blaming the death of one of its volunteers on blockade of the temple by government forces which has prevented the patient from being taken to the hospital for treatment within a short period of time.
Earlier on Wednesday, Phra Palad Seksant Attathamo, a Dhammakaya monk, condemned the Department of Special Investigation for the death of Ms Pattana Chiangraeng, 48, an assistant pharmacist at the temple, from asthma.
The monk claimed that DSI officials prevented a rescue team to leave the temple in order to take Ms Pattana to a hospital. But when the rescue vehicle was allowed to leave the temple, it was already too late to save the life of the patient, he said.
Phra Palad claimed that it took about an hour and ten minutes for monks to get a clearance from the DSI to allow the rescue vehicle to leave the temple for hospital.
Lt-Gen Sansern said that Phra Maha Nopporn contacted the DSI at about 1.31 pm asking for an ambulance to be sent into the temple to pick up Ms Pattana, but when the ambulance arrived at the temple, police and doctors were already at the scene conducting an initial post mortem on the patient who was believed to have died at about 9 am.
The spokesman said that the monk’s claim that officials had deliberately prevented the patient from getting out to get medical treatment was a distortion of fact.
He alleged that since the enforcement of Section 44 to declare the temple a “controlled zone”, Dhammakaya followers had resorted to the spreading of misinformation or distorted news to discredit the officials.
