Robbers beat shop owner, steal 600,000 baht

PHUKET TOWN: Two armed thieves held up a woman in her shop on Ong Sim Phai Rd late Saturday night and stole 600,000 baht, a gold chain worth about 6,000 baht, and a mobile phone. They then pistol-whipped the woman and her niece, who arrived on the scene just as the robbers were completing their work. Pol Lt Parichat Jaturonpan of Phuket Police Station told the Gazette that he received a report from Phaya Thai Phuket Hospital that a woman had been brought into the emergency room with head and face injuries. The officers learned that the woman’s name was Wassana Nimnuan, 38, the owner of the Nattapong Nalika clock shop on Ong Sim Phai Rd, but were told by doctors that she could not speak because of her injuries. Khun Wassana’s niece said that her aunt had been collecting money from a number of people at a fair held at the Thavorn Grand Plaza Hotel. She had put the money in her waist belt and had gone back to her shop. As she counted the money, the two men came in and told her to hand it over. They also snatched the gold chain from around her neck and her mobile phone. When she struggled for possession of the money, the robbers beat her with their pistols, knocking her to the ground. At this point, the niece walked into the shop and received a beating as well. The two men then escaped on a motorcycle. The robbers are still at large, but police believe they may have been among the people from whom Khun Wassana had earlier collected money.