The police sergeant, Panya Kamrap, ended up killing 36 individuals, 24 of them kids, within the small farming group earlier than taking his personal life. It was the largest mass killing by a person in Thailand’s historical past.
Joint ceremonies for many of the victims have been held at three temples to spare households from having to attend lengthy hours for successive cremations to be accomplished, mentioned Phra Kru Adisal Kijjanuwat, the abbot of the Rat Samakee temple.
A ceremony for 19 of the lifeless, 18 of them kids, was held at his temple. With a big crowd watching, monks slowly walked out of the temple corridor, adopted by grieving kinfolk. Every household was led by one monk, with police bearing the coffin behind them.
After the coffins have been positioned in every of the small, brick-enclosed funeral pyres, the victims’ kinfolk got here ahead within the darkening skies to place portraits of their family members on prime. Some members of the family additionally positioned kids’s toys alongside.
A big mesh barrier was arrange, separating onlookers from the kinfolk, monks and royal palace officers tasked with lighting the fires, who started placing paper flowers alongside the perimeters of the pyres and dousing them with gasoline. The officers then ushered the members of the family to take the portraits and toys away, and transfer a number of meters (yards) from the coffins the place they knelt on mats.
Buddhist chants performed from a speaker system arrange behind the kinfolk, because the officers and monks started lighting the pyres one after the other. The coffins have been quickly engulfed by flames, at instances stoked by the officers including extra gasoline. The victims’ kinfolk sat silently by, palms clasped in prayer.
“Every one in all them watched the cremation with their minds in a state of aware consciousness,” mentioned the abbot. “The help they obtained from individuals throughout has blessed them, lessened the sorrow they’ve.”
On Tuesday morning, lots of the younger victims’ our bodies had been outfitted as docs, troopers or astronauts — what they needed to be once they grew up — earlier than their night cremation.
“The extra we talked (to the households), we realized that these kids additionally had goals of turning into docs, troopers, astronauts, or law enforcement officials,” mentioned volunteer rescue employee Attarith Muangmangkang, whose group organized for the costumes.
Petchrung Sriphirom, 73, was one in all many native residents who traveled to the temple to supply condolences to the households and make a small donation to assist with funeral prices, which is a standard Thai customized.
“I simply wish to assist our pals and share our ideas with them,” mentioned Petchrung. “We aren’t speaking about cash or something however fairly sharing our ideas and emotions as a fellow human being,”
The perpetrator’s physique was cremated Saturday in a neighboring province after temples in Uthai Sawan refused to host his funeral, Thai media reported.
Mass shootings are uncommon however not remarkable in Thailand, which has one of many highest civilian gun possession charges in Asia, with 15.1 weapons per 100 individuals in comparison with solely 0.3 in Singapore and 0.25 in Japan. That’s nonetheless far decrease than the U.S. price of 120.5 per 100 individuals, in keeping with a 2017 survey by Australia’s GunPolicy.org nonprofit group.
Thailand’s earlier worst mass killing concerned a disgruntled soldier who opened fireplace in and round a mall within the northeastern metropolis of Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020, killing 29 individuals and holding off safety forces for some 16 hours earlier than ultimately being killed by them.
