National security agencies have ordered a rethink on the strategy to search Dhammakaya Temple for fugitive former abbot Phra Dhamma-chayo, a source at the Justice Ministry said yesterday.

Authorities would take a step back and examine “weak points” in the plan before proceeding, the source said. An initial four-day search warrant for the temple in Pathum Thani’s Klong Luang district expired on Friday.

The change of tack partially followed a report that some “extremist” disciples and monks had allegedly prepared a plan to harm themselves so that images of “bloodstained robes and clothing” could be disseminated through social media in the hope of attracting global media attention to any raid, the source said.

Yesterday, Dhammakaya Temple’s media relations officer Phra Sanitwong Wuttiwangso dismissed claims of such an extreme plan of action as untrue.

The source said all agencies had information that Phra Dhammachayo, who is being sought over money-laundering charges linked to the Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative embezzlement case and other land-encroachment cases, was still inside the temple.

The fact that the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) failed to act on the first search warrant would not affect its application for another, the source said. National security agencies had deemed the risk of clashes too high with a large number of people being mobilised to the temple compound.

One of the “weak points” the authorities wanted to improve on was information confidentiality, because as soon as a search warrant is approved, the temple mobilises people to resist the operation. A successful raid would require an element of surprise, the source said.

In the meantime, officials would proceed with legal action and apply for arrest warrants against leading protesters and the temple’s acting abbot. The acting abbot is accused of harbouring a fugitive and refusing to turn him in to face justice, the source said.

Meanwhile, a DSI source said the agency’s drones which last week surveyed the temple’s various zones and personnel did not capture any image of Phra Dhammachayo.

Earlier reports said monks and disciples claimed they hadn’t seen the wanted former abbot in person for months.

At 4pm yesterday, Klong Luang Police Station inspector Pol Lt-Colonel Jirachote Sripattarapa posted a letter to the temple’s seventh entrance demanding that its executives hand over Phra Dhammachayo and Ongart Thamnita, the spokesman for followers of Dhammakaya Temple, to police within seven days.

The letter stated that Phra Dhammachayo was wanted under an arrest warrant from Nakhon Ratchasima court over land encroachment charges and Ongart was wanted, under a Thanyaburi court warrant, over a libel charge and related offences. If the temple administrators failed to do so, they would be held accountable for neglect of duty and harbouring fugitives.

Less than an hour earlier, another team of police and local administrators posted notices of evidence around the three-metre-tall temple fence alleging it had been constructed illegally.

Temple lawyer Thatchanon Pornbaiyoke said the Building Control Act 2007 did not require religious buildings to seek permission but to merely notify the local bodies about their construction plans.