Police went door to door in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district on Wednesday, reviewing security-camera footage that might bring them closer to identifying suspects or determining a motive in a grenade explosion that injured three people on Tuesday night.
Leaked CCTV footage shared widely on social media since the explosion shows the grenade appearing in the middle of Street 163 as motorbikes stream past. It detonates to the left of an SUV, sending up a cloud of smoke and debris and shattering glass in the blast radius.
Three people were injured in the explosion—an Indian man, a Vietnamese man and a Cambodian woman. At least two were released from the hospital on Wednesday.
Standing at the site of the explosion on Wednesday, deputy municipal police chief Song Ly said investigators were scouring the scene for evidence and collecting clues from security cameras in the area, but declined to discuss the case further.
Seang Sok, a deputy prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court who is leading the investigation, was interviewing local residents. He refused to comment on the case.
Reached by telephone, National Police spokesman Saran Komsath said police had not yet identified any suspects, nor nailed down a motive.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry called on the public to provide any information that might help authorities “determine the identity of the perpetrator[s].”
Dharmendra Singh Kshetrimayum, a 32-year-old Indian national who was injured by shrapnel from the explosion, was released from the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital at about 10 a.m., according to a doctor who operated on the man.
“He was sent to our hospital at 8:40 last night,” said the doctor, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“We scanned him and found that he sustained injuries to the forehead, right wrist and right hip,” he said.
“We found a piece of the grenade in his right hip and we successfully removed it.”
A nurse at Calmette Hospital, who also requested anonymity, said Vietnamese national Nging Hiv, 38, was released in the morning after undergoing surgery for minor injuries.
She said she did not know whether Chan Vanny, a 37-year-old Cambodian woman sent to Calmette last night, had also been released.
Neng Pheng Nai, 56, said the door and window of her cafe on Street 163 were destroyed by the blast.
“I was watching television in my house and suddenly I heard a loud explosion,” she said. “At first I thought it was a gas explosion, but when I went to look, I saw that it was a bomb.”
“My family was really scared,” she added. “It was like bombing during the Khmer Rouge regime.”
