A spate of grave robberies at a public cemetery in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽) has left residents feeling concerned over the defilement of their ancestors’ graves and bad feng shui.
Feng shui refers to the Chinese system of geomancy by which the auspicious positioning of objects — including buildings, furniture and graves — is believed to ensure harmony, health and fortune.
The robberies reportedly took place at the township’s No. 13 Public Cemetery, a 4.6 hectare open area with 1,339 graves.
Changhua Police Bureau Puyan Station Chief Chi Ming-jen (紀明仁) said the first robbery was confirmed on Aug. 29, but other suspected robberies have yet to be confirmed, because potential victims are waiting for auspicious dates to check the coffins of their loved ones and ancestors.
Puyan Township Council Speaker Hsu Wen-ping (許文萍) and Township Councilor Shih Chun-kuei (施春貴) said they suspected there have been about 22 robberies at the cemetery, with the first committed before the Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept. 15.
Township residents told the councilors that they were paying respects to their ancestors at their family plots when they saw slits on the lawn.
Following excavations of the graves, they found holes had been cut in the lids of the coffins, the bones disturbed and the items that had been buried with their ancestors missing, the councilors said.
The councilors said the culprits appeared to be skilled thieves.
The grave robbers targeted graves in remote areas of the cemetery, used equipment to cut the lawn, then dug down to the coffins and sawed through the lids so they could retrieve valuable items buried with the dead, the councilors said, adding that the thieves then filled the holes with soil to cover their tracks.
The grave robbers likely used metal detectors to locate valuable items, they added.
The councilors said that many families might not know if their ancestors’ graves had been robbed and called on residents to check their familial graves for peace of mind and to repair any damaged feng shui.
Hsu said the Puyan Township Office tried to cover up the robberies to protect its political image.
“The laziness of the township office is a disgrace to the affected families,” he said.
The office denied the allegations, adding that it had notified the police of the situation as soon as it was made aware of it.
The office said that it would publish the serial numbers of the graves that had been robbed on its Web site.
According to feng shui principles, raiding a grave might cause ill to the relatives of the diseased, but also to the grave robbers, geomancer and fortune-teller Pu Chin-feng (蒲慶峰) said.
Families who find their ancestral grave defiled are urged to re-inter the remains at a new site on an auspicious date, and if they are unable do so, repair the coffin, refill the soil and replant the lawn, Pu said.
“Grave robbers are afflicted with horrendous luck; a grave robbery cartel became infamous four years ago because its members were dying left and right,” Pu said.
Police are reviewing closed-circuit TV camera footage and are following up on leads, including two apparent grave robberies in neighboring Erlin Township (二林) that might be connected to the crimes, Chi said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,