Chancy chat at chick shop

TRANG: An employee at the Trang branch of Tesco Lotus had a lucky escape April 19 when an angry KFC worker attempted to shoot him at point blank range with a shotgun. The cartridge, however, misfired. About 10 am, Sombun Sikhajan, 31, was working in the tape section as usual when Phichet Kanmak, 33, who worked at the store’s branch of KFC, strode up to him, pointed a shotgun at him and pulled the trigger. K. Sombun was spared from almost certain death however, when the gun made only a sorry click rather than the expected boom. K. Sombun jumped forward to try and wrest the gun from Phichet before he could get another shot off, causing a fight to break out. K. Sombun, however, was apparently no match for the enraged Phichet and quickly found himself having his head bashed repeatedly against the counter. At that point, the supermarket’s crack team of security guards somewhat belatedly arrived on the scene and broke up the scuffle. Phichet made good his escape, but left his shotgun behind. When police from Trang Muang District Police Station led by Lt Narin Phumsawat arrived on the scene, they found the battered K. Sombun waiting to give a statement. K. Sombun told police that he was fairly sure that the attack was motivated by jealousy as Phichet had seen him chatting with his girlfriend and may have thought that he was hitting on her. The day before the attack, Phichet had gone to speak to him in the store about the issue, K. Sombun said. K. Sombun later reported to the police that sometime after the attack, Phichet called him to demand the return of his shotgun and also to tell him that he had “lots of guns”. Police concluded that the motive for the attack was most likely jealousy and said they were still hunting for Phichet. At the time of going to press, they still had no leads as to his whereabouts.