3rd October, 2023
A 14-year-old boy has been arrested after a shooting at a luxury shopping mall in the centre of Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday.
The boy was said to have opened fire inside the shopping killing two people in the process.
Police Colonel Noppadol Thiammekha, Pathum Wan Police Chief, told the CNN that the shooting took place around 5 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET) at the Siam Paragon Mall in Bangkok, on Tuesday.
The Thai police confirmed that one casualty was Chinese and the other, who worked at the mall, was Burmese, BBC reports.
The police said they have arrested a 14-year-old boy who is the suspected attacker, but the boy’s name has not been mentioned.
According to the police, the boy surrendered on the third floor of the mall, but his motive was unknown.
The suspect is reported to be a pupil at a school not far from the mall.
Siam Paragon, located in the heart of Bangkok, is one of the most visited places in Asia and is popular with locals and tourists.
An eyewitness, Shir Yahav, 26, said the shooting happened in just a few minutes.
According to Yahav, “We saw all the people run, run, run, we didn’t understand what was happening. We went with them and then we heard several shots, like six or seven shots. We blocked the door of the store.”
According to CNN, gun ownership in the Southeast Asian country is high compared with other countries in the region.
More than 10.3 million civilians held firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS) said. About 6.2 million of those guns are legally registered, according to SAS.