Police Colonel Veerasilp Kwanseng, head of Paknam district station in Ranong in southwest Thailand, said the navy had handed over 78 Rohingya, an oppressed Muslim minority from the former Burma's northwest.

It is not clear whether this is a change of policy or a publicity stunt widely shown on Thai television to defuse international outrage at persistent allegations of the army abandoning nearly 1,000 Rohingya at sea.

"Most of them were suffering from quite serious exhaustion and required medical assistance. We have local medics looking after them," he told Reuters. "Many had wounds on their bodies, but I don't know exactly what caused them."

Another officer said the migrants, a dozen of whom were under 18, had reported the wounds as whiplashes inflicted by officials in military-ruled Myanmar.

The group's handling by police is a break with the army's secretive processing of other Rohingya on a remote Andaman Sea island before towing them out to sea and abandoning them in rickety, engine-less boats.

A Rohingya rights group says 550 of nearly 1,000 towed out to sea by the army since early December are feared to have drowned.

NBT television showed pictures of the emaciated and exhausted men in the latest group being treated by medics and holding registration papers.

Veerasilp said the men, who were found floating near Thailand's Surin Islands after an unknown period at sea, would be prosecuted for illegal immigration.

The offence carries a fine of up to 2,000 baht, but is seldom enforced in the case of destitute migrants.

"ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION"

More than 230,000 Rohingya are living a precarious, stateless existence in Bangladesh, having fled decades of persecution at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist generals, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR).

Tens of thousands more have left, often in rickety wooden boats, in search of a better life elsewhere. Many have ended up in Malaysia, where more than 14,000 are formally registered as refugees and thousands more work as casual laborers.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has made much of putting human rights at the center of government but who relies on support from the army, said he wanted four-way talks between Thailand, Bangladesh, India and the UNHCR to address the problem.

"We must work out a solution acceptable to all parties but it must be stressed that we will not allow sustained illegal migration that may put our security at risk," he said, adding that the Foreign Ministry had been asked to approach the UNHCR.

His words do not seem to be getting through.

The UNHCR in Bangkok wrote a formal letter a week ago asking for access to a batch of 126 Rohingya in military custody, but is yet to hear a response to its request.

The army has told the government the group in question is no longer in the country.

A spokesman said Foreign Minister Kasit Piromyas was trying to arrange a meeting with UNHCR in Bangkok but was having problems due to his busy schedule.