Thai gunman killed grandparents before school shooting

The gunman ⁠in a school shooting in Thailand shot and killed his grandparents at ‌their ⁠home before opening fire at a school on Bangkok's outskirts, police ‌said.

Six people were killed at the secondary school in the Nonthaburi province and 23 ‌other people ⁠were ‌wounded, Thai police have said.

The suspected gunman, a teenage student at the school, is among the dead.

Provincial Police Commander Lt. Col. Dechrapee Kongdee Nonthaburi said the teenager had died by suicide.

The injured students were not hurt by gunfire but as they were trying to flee, he said.

Earlier, deputy interior minister Polapee Suwunchwee told local broadcaster Thai PBS that two students and two teachers were among those killed in the assault at the school.

"It's such a terrible incident. It should never have happened. How could this happen in our country?" Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at Bangkok's Government House.

The suspect used a handgun, and the interior ministry was investigating how the student obtained it.

One 18-year-old student said he initially thought there were firecrackers going off or someone banging an object.

"I didn't think it was a ‌gun at first," he said, "There were many shots: bang bang bang. Then it went quiet. ⁠Then it started again."

Photos published by local media show the suspect wearing a purple school uniform and carrying a black cross-body bag, with several bullet casings visible on the ground.

Traffic near the Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi was nearly at a standstill, with local media reporting that parents were picking up their children following the incident.

Thailand has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the region, with around 10 million firearms estimated to be in circulation - one for every seven inhabitants.

Past promises of tightening gun laws have not prevented repeated shootings.

In February, Thai police shot and arrested a teenage shooter who opened fire at a school in the south of the country, leaving the school principal dead and two students injured.

The teen had used a police officer's weapon in the shooting.

A local police chief said at the time that the suspect was hospitalised for psychiatric treatment in December and had been discharged.

The teen stabbed a police officer with a knife and stole his weapon - a 9mm pistol - just before the incident, and then used it to carry out the attack.

In 2022, an ex-policeman armed with a gun and a knife stormed into a nursery in the country's north and murdered 24 children and 12 adults, one of Thailand's deadliest massacres.