A former corporal in the Burmese army who raped a ten-year-old girl has been re-captured after escaping, say sources in Ye Township. The victim was staying in his home to attend tutoring sessions with his wife.
About fifty children from the second through fifth standards in Han Gan village regularly came to the home to be tutored by the man’s wife. Students in Burma are frequently tutored by their teachers outside of school hours, and often sleep at their teacher’s homes.
On December 14th, the teacher left to visit her parents in Moulmein, said one of her students. Unsure of how long she would be gone, the students came to the home expecting to attend a lesson. That night, the victim, Mi Son, slept in the center a row of children, who slept in rows side by side.
Late in the night, Pyay Soe Han picked up the girl, who is in the fourth standard, and carried her to his room. She made no sound because she did not wake at first, her grandmother told a source who spoke with IMNA, and then he covered her mouth as he raped her. The girl lives with her grandfather and grandmother because her parents are both working in Bangkok, Thailand.
Pyay Soe Han left the army one year ago, and was formerly a corporal in Light Infantry Battalion No. 586, based in Kayen Kapo village in northern Ye Township. Originally from Rangoon, he lived in Han Gan because his wife, who is from Moulmein, is posted there as a government schoolteacher.
Initially, the girl told no one of the incident because she was afraid, the source told IMNA. The next evening, however, Pyay Soe Han came to her grandparents’ home. He spoke with the grandmother and told the girl to come to the nightly tutoring session, though he did not mention that his wife had yet to return.
After Pyay Soe Han left, Mi Son hid during the conversation and appeared to be afraid and acting out of the ordinary, the grandmother told the IMNA source. After repeated questioning by her grandmother, Mi Son eventually described the events of the previous night.
Horrified, her grandmother immediately contacted the village headman. Pyay Soe Han was arrested later that night, say other sources in the village, and his feet were placed in wooden stocks at the town’s Peace and Development Council (PDC) office. The next day, Mi Son was taken to the Ye Hospital, which confirmed that she had been raped.
“When she was telling me the story, she was crying the whole time,” the IMNA source said, describing his conversation with the grandmother. “She said, ‘I want to say so many things, but I do not know how express what I am feeling. I want to kill this man.”
Pyay Soe Han escaped at some point during the night of December 15th, which villagers say he could only have done with outside help. The stocks are designed to detain a group of men, and he was secured outside arms reach of the lock. The stocks were not broken, the villagers said, and only the headman and officials of the village PDC have access to keys.
Villagers pressed the headman to re-capture the fugitive and he contacted the police in Ye Town, the township capital. Pyay Soe Han was apprehended at the Ye Railway Station, twenty kilometers away in Ye Town, later that day. He remains in the custody of the Ye Police. His wife has not returned from Moulmein.
“We were not satisfied that the man could get away after he was arrested,” said a woman from Han Gan village. “We hate the retired soldier. We do not accept what he did to this young girl.”
