A village bacchanal turned violent in Pursat province on Tuesday night when a group of intoxicated young men chased a local “gangster” with a sword, according to police, who managed to arrest just three of the perpetrators the following morning.
The men, 11 in total, had been drinking beneath a stilt house in Phnom Kravanh district’s Pra Ngil commune since before the sun went down, and at one point convinced a 6-year-old boy to drink from a plastic water bottle containing an unknown liquid, said district police chief Vong Savet, adding that the child was unharmed.
When the boy’s father, a “well-known gangster” named Van Chanry, learned that his son had been made to drink from the bottle, he confronted the intoxicated men at about 11:30 p.m., Mr. Savet said.
Mr. Chanry asked the men what was in the bottle, but they laughed off his inquiry and told him to return home, the police chief said. He obliged, but flew into a rage when he heard them “laughing and cheering” and approached them again, he said.
At this point, he added, the men stood and began chasing Mr. Chanry through the darkened village with sticks and a sword.
Mr. Chanry managed to elude the group and hid under his neighbor’s house, but when the men began wailing on nearby a tractor with their weapons, the homeowner turned on a light to investigate the racket and illuminated the victim’s hiding spot, Mr. Savet said.
The sword-wielding man struck Mr. Chanry three times: “first, on the palm of his left hand; second, on the right side of his upper back; and third, on the right side of his upper back.”
Relatives of Mr. Chanry reported the attack to local police, who arrested three of the suspects on Wednesday morning, Mr. Savet said, adding that provincial police identified and questioned the trio on Thursday but were still looking for the other eight suspects, including the man with the sword.
