Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the day care centre where more than 20 pre-schoolers were killed as they were reporting on the attack, authorities said.

Danaichok Boonsom, head of the local township administration, told reporters as he left the Na Klang district police station that he had submitted his report on the incident alleging unauthorised entry on to the government property, and that police were investigating.

“Let the legal process run its course, I don’t want to disclose all the details,” he said.

“Let the police do their work investigating.”

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene, with one climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the centre, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the centre for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet.

“During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the centre to leave.”

The tweet came in response to criticism from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT), which said it was “dismayed” by CNN’s coverage and the decision to film the crime scene inside.

“This was unprofessional and a serious breach of journalistic ethics in crime reporting,” the FCCT said.

The Thai Journalists’ Association criticised CNN’s actions as “unethical” and “insensitive”, and called for an internal company investigation of the incident in addition to the official Thai probe.

In a later statement, CNN International’s executive vice president and general manager Mike McCarthy reiterated that his reporters sought permission to enter the building but the team “now understands that these officials were not authorised to grant this permission”, adding that it was “never their intention to contravene any rules”.

He said CNN had ceased broadcasting the report and had removed the video from its website.

“We deeply regret any distress or offence our report may have caused, and for any inconvenience to the police at such a distressing time for the country,” he said in the statement tweeted by CNN.

Deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said the two journalists entered Thailand on tourist visas, which had now been revoked.

He said they had been detained pending their expulsion from the country, but refused to provide further details.

In the attack on Thursday, police said 36 people, 24 of them children, were killed by a former police officer who was sacked earlier this year on drug charges and had been due in court on Friday.

As Thailand’s worst such massacre ever, the attack drew widespread international media attention to the small town of Uthai Sawan in the country’s rural north-east.

By Sunday few remained, but large numbers of Thai media continued to report from the scene.

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