Gunman ‘with grudge’ kills five at Bangkok market

A gunman shot and killed five people at a popular fresh food market in the Thai capital before killing himself, police have said, attributing the shooting to a personal grudge.

The victims included four security guards at the Or Tor Kor market in northern Bangkok, according to a police statement.

It said a vendor there was also killed, and that two others were wounded.

The market is next to the sprawling Chatuchak weekend market, which is popular with Thai and foreign tourists.

A statement by Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner issued several hours after the shooting said the gunman’s wife told them that he had held a grudge against the security guards related to his car being scratched in 2019 or 2020.

The wife has a food stall at the market, the statement said.

“Mr Noi is a person who loves and is very protective of his car, and is also a violent person,” said the statement, identifying the suspect only by a nickname.

It said the gunman walked away after the shooting and shot himself with a handgun on a bench.

He had been wearing a black T-shirt, military-pattern shorts, a baseball cap and a backpack.

The statement stressed that the incident involved a personal conflict and was not linked to the border fighting with neighbouring Cambodia, as had been rumoured on social media.

Gun violence is not unusual in Thailand, which has fairly restrictive laws but also a high level of gun ownership.

The last mass shooting in Bangkok was in October 2023 when a teenage boy shot more than half a dozen people at the Paragon shopping centre with a modified blank pistol in the city’s main shopping district, killing three people.

One of the country’s worst mass killings occurred in October 2022 in the north-eastern province of Nong Bua Lamphua, when a police sergeant who had lost his job used guns and knives to kill 36 people, including two dozen toddlers at a day care centre.

In February 2020, a disgruntled Thai army soldier shot and killed 29 people, most at a shopping centre in the north-eastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, before he was killed by police after an 18-hour stand-off.