Teen with special needs stabs classmate to death over bullying in Thailand

School staff say the boy was regularly bullied by his schoolmates

File An ambulance car carrying student leaves a high school for a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A teenager with special needs in Thailand stabbed his classmate to death over bullying, police said.

The 14-year-old eighth-grade student was allegedly stabbed twice in the neck at the Nak Nava Upatham School in Phra Khanong district of Bangkok on Monday, the school administration said.

The incident happened just after morning assembly and Bangkok’s Klong Tan police station reported the fatal stabbing at 8.40am local time.

Senior police officer Witthawat Chinkham went to the site of the crime after an investigation was launched into the incident.

The boy told the police the victim had attacked him on several occasions, punching him in the head and face to demand 20 baht (£0.45), which he claimed he needed to buy cigarettes, the Bangkok Post quoted police officer Wachirakon Wongbun, chief of Klong Tan police station, as saying. The boy, 14, who the school staff said was regularly bullied by his schoolmates, pulled out a fruit knife and stabbed the pupil in the neck, according to the report.

The injured boy then tried to run downstair in an attempt to escape but he was stabbed again on the right side of his neck and collapsed in the basketball ground of the school.

Members of Poh Teck Tung Foundation, a rescue organisation that provides assistance during accidents and disasters, tried to resuscitate the victim before he was taken to Vibharam General Hospital. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The boy who allegedly attacked his classmate was taken to Klong Tan Police Station for questioning in the presence of his parents and social workers from the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.