Manama: Police in Saudi Arabia have launched a massive manhunt to catch three young men who fired guns randomly inside a high school.
More than 350 students and their teachers gathered for the daily morning line-up at Prince Sultan School in Wadi Al Dawasser when the three young men started firing indiscriminately, Saudi daily Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
"They fired from the school yard at the fence apparently after they had an argument with one of the school students," Colonel Nasser Al Qah’tani, a spokesman for the Riyadh police spokesman, said, quoted by the newspaper. "Nobody was hurt in the incident and the police are now looking for the three young men who fled the scene."
No official statistics on how many guns exist in private hands in Saudi Arabia is available, but in July 2009, Riyadh police said they had seized 1,091 weapons and more than 13,200 rounds of ammunition in the capital area in the first six months of the year, according to a report in the Saudi Gazette daily.
In October last year, the Saudi news agency said that the interior ministry would licence privately owned gun shops and allow Saudis to buy handguns and other personal firearms for the first time.
The decision, aimed in part at reining in the widespread illegal ownership of handguns and assault weapons, stipulated that anyone more than 25 years and with no criminal record could apply to open a gun store.
