BANGKOK, Oct 6: A gunman killed at least 38 people, most of them children,
in Nong Bua Lamphu province, in upper northeastern Thailand, 500 km from Bangkok,
in a mass shooting on Thursday. Most shootings took place in a children's nursery
in the Uthai Sawan sub-district of Na Klang district.
The gunman, a former policeman, killed his family and himself later. The motive
is not clear. Otherwise he used to drop off his child at the pre-school everyday.
Among the dead were 22 children. A dozen people who were injured have been
taken to Nong Bua Lamphu district hospital.
The shooter came around lunch time and shot five people at the entrance and
forced his entry into the locked room where small kids were sleeping and began
shooting them. After the mass shooting, he fled in a truck, shooting random
on the way. He drove over bystanders also. On reaching home, he killed his wife
and son before taking his own life.
The attacker, Panya Kamrab, 34, a local man, was a police lieutenant colonel
and was dismissed last year for drug use.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in Thailand, worse than the Nakhon Ratchasima
shootings of 2020 when a soldier killed 29 people and injured dozens more. Mass
shootings are rare in Thailand.
