Actress Aaliyah Qureishi, who was recently seen in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Jawan’, recently recollected a harrowing incident when she witnessed a 14-year-old gunman open firing, killing two people on the spot in Thailand.
She took to her social media and shared how a delay at the ATM saved her and her friends from entering the radius of the shooter.
Sharing the photos from the day the incident took place, the actress penned a long note.
She wrote, “Okay this is hard to write. But I don’t want my Instagram to be a place where I only talk about shiny happy things, so as horrible as it is, here goes. As some of you have asked, I was in Thailand during the Siam Paragon shooting. In fact, me and my 2 friends were in the mall when it happened. We were coming up the escalator when we saw mass hysteria and someone yelled out ‘shooter’. As we ran back down we heard 3 gunshots. It was a terrifying experience.”
She continued, “I feel grateful that my friends and I got out of it alive. And I feel horrible that 2 innocent people didn’t. I wish real life was like action films, where you could fearlessly jump into any cruel fight and save everyone. But when it happens, the only thought in your mind is to get out of there alive. To think that when the day began, we were relaxed and playing with dogs, and by the end of the day we were running away from a mall shooting, soaked in rain, desperately trying to find a tuk-tuk to take us home, is insane. Life is crazy and unexpected.”
She then said that she still can’t process “all the mixed emotions”.
She further mentioned, “I have about the incident, but I just kept thinking, we spent 10 minutes at the currency exchange before going up that escalator. It took longer than expected. What if we had not had problems, and spent only 5 minutes instead? Where would we have been at the time of the shooting? In the store, closer to him? I don’t know, but it makes me think that there’s some divine timing, and like the Burnt Toast Theory, something seemingly irritating could be a blessing in disguise, maybe even save your life. There are so many things we don’t know.”
“My heart goes out to all the friends and families of the two victims, and the five injured. I hope we can heal as a society and not have to witness these horrible outbursts of rage by disturbed people. Stay safe everyone. Lots of love and light to you all,” she added.