THE Department of Special Investigations is to probe ownership of a land title deed on Racha Island, off Phuket, that local people have called into question.

Notification that the DSI is to become involved came in dramatic fashion in a telephone call from Bangkok yesterday as the Standing Senate Committee on Corruption interviewed a Racha Island leader at Provincial Hall in Phuket City.

The leader, Sarit Jandee, said a plan by the developers of the Rayaburi Resort on the island's Ao Siam beach would mean closure of a traditional walking track that had been in use for at least a century.

He said he could not understand how a land title could exist to any portion of Racha Island when the island had been left off old maps of Thailand. At one stage, the Thai Navy had wanted to put a base there.

''We have lived on the island for a very long time and even our family was not offered land title,'' he said. ''The title deeds appear to have only emerged in the hands of rich and powerful people.''

He said that the last time the committee came to investigate, they questioned the people who claimed to own the land, but not local people.

Rawai Municipality had ordered construction work on the development to stop, he said.

''Now that the governor has gone and a new governor is in charge, we will have to present our case all over again,'' he said.

The committee's visit to Phuket included trips to two other areas where objections have been raised: a series of billabongs in Mai Khao, northern Phuket, and a yacht marina site on Rat Island, close to the Jumeriah development. Work appears to have ceased at the Jumeirah site.