Serbian police said Friday they had arrested a man suspected of killing eight people and injuring at least 14 others in the country's second mass shooting this week, following a manhunt through the night. Hours earlier, near Mladenovac -- about 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of the capital Belgrade -- a 21-year-old gunman armed with an automatic weapon opened fire from a moving vehicle before fleeing, state-run RTS television reported.

The shooting spree spread across three separate villages in the area, RTS said. It prompted a manhunt through the night as police combed the woods near Belgrade. "Following a wide search, police arrested U.B.," police said in a statement, using only the suspect's initials. "He is suspected to have killed eight and injured 14 people overnight. The injured are hospitalised." The police said the man had been arrested near the central city of Kragujevac and about 90 kilometres from the scene of the attacks.

According to RTS, the suspect was arrested at the home of a relative and was in possession of four hand grenades and a large amount of illegal weapons and ammunition. The incident happened less than 48 hours after the worst school shooting in Serbia's recent history, when a 13-year-old killed nine people, including eight fellow students, at a school in downtown Belgrade on Wednesday. The back-to-back mass shootings have left the country in a state of deep shock, with thousands flocking to makeshift memorial sites while others have queued to donate blood.

The latest shooting is believed to have begun at around midnight.  The state broadcaster said the suspected shooter first opened fire at a schoolyard in the village of Dubona and killed a police officer and his sister along with others in the area. The gunman then moved onto the nearby villages of Mali Orasje and Sepsin, according to RTS. "We heard gunshots in the evening, but I thought it was fireworks, children fooling around. It did not even occur to me that something like this could happen," Zvonko Mladenovic, a Dubona resident, told reporters.

Mladenovic said his cousin's granddaughter had been shot and wounded. "She was visiting her grandfather. This was where the kids were hanging out and... she was shot in the head," Mladenovic added. "First those kids in Belgrade, and now this. This is a disaster." At dawn on Friday, a heavy police presence could be seen in the area of the latest shooting. Roughly 600 police personnel had been deployed to the area, according to RTS, with members of an elite anti-terrorist unit patrolling the highway. Worried relatives gathered outside the emergency medical centre in Belgrade, where at least eight of the injured were hospitalised, N1 television reported.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP