Two teenagers to face court over alleged stabbing at Queensland shopping centre

Two teenagers will face court following an alleged stabbing at a busy shopping centre in regional Queensland.

Emergency services were called to the incident just outside Big W in Grand Central Shopping Centre in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, just before 2pm yesterday.

Big W and other surrounding shops were placed under lockdown and did not reopen until hours later.

Police later arrested a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy, both from Glenvale, nearby and charged them each with affray.

They are due to appear in Toowoomba Children's Court on June 11.

A 19-year-old man was taken to Toowoomba Hospital for treatment for minor injuries to his arm.

As investigations continued, Inspector Jerome Winslade said police believed a group of up to six people were involved and knew each other.

"Their level of involvement is all differing but there's still four people we'd like to speak to," he said.

Inspector Winslade said police did not believe the incident was gang-related.

He said initial investigations found there were two groups involved who came across each other in the shopping centre.

"For some unknown reason, at this stage, they've entered into a disturbance or a physical altercation where knives were produced by both groups of persons and, unfortunately, one of those boys has received some minor injuries," Inspector Winslade said.

"This was not a random attack, dealing with members of the public at all. It was a motivated issue between two persons."

Inspector Winslade said there was "absolutely no excuse" for anyone to be carrying a knife in public.

"We will not stop until we keep policing our way through this because, as I said, people need to know this is not OK."

Anyone with information about the incident is being urged to contact police.