Thailand nursery shooting: PM Shehbaz sends condolences to victims’ families

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday condemned the Thailand nursery shooting that left nearly 37 people dead and sent “deepest condolences to the bereaved parents and people of Thailand.”

“It could not get more gruesome than this,” he wrote in a tweet. “We are deeply shocked and hurt to learn about the killing of 3 dozen people including 23 children and infants in Thailand.”

He further stated that he had no words to condemn this barbarity.

On October 6, a former police officer opened fire at a nursery targeting mainly children in one of the deadliest mass killings in Thailand.

Following the attack, gunman Panya Khamrab went home and killed his wife and child before taking his own life, police said.

Many world leaders condemned the attack and offered condolences to victims’ families.

Foreign Minister Bilalwal Bhutto Zardari also offered condolences.

“Shocked at the loss of innocent lives in a shooting at a nursery in Thailand,” he tweeted. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families.”

Gunman murders at least 35 in Thai nursery attack

Armed with a shotgun, pistol and knife, Panya opened fire on the childcare centre in northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province at about 12:30 pm (0530 GMT).

Police Colonel Jakkapat Vijitraithaya from the province where the attack happened said that the gunman scores of people which comprises mostly children. Nanthicha Punchum, acting chief of the nursery, told of harrowing scenes as the attacker barged into the building.

“There were some staff eating lunch outside the nursery and the attacker parked his car and shot four of them dead,” she said.

“The shooter smashed down the door with his leg and then came inside and started slashing the children’s heads with a knife.”

Footage after the incident showed distraught parents weeping in a shelter outside the nursery, a yellow single-storey building set in a garden. The 34-year-old gunman was a former police sergeant suspended in January and sacked in June for drug use, National Police Chief Damrongsak Kittiprapat told reporters.

“As far as I know he was due in court tomorrow for a drug-related trial,” he said.