“At about 10:00am that day, villagers in Maung Nama Village slaughtered a cow for a religious festival called Laylatul Qadr (the Night of Power) after obtaining permission from the authorities to do so.”

Mr. Dilu said that around 11:00am a group of police officers from Aung Mingala Police Station in northern Maungdaw Township asked villagers to give them five Visses (one Viss=1.66 kg) of beef, but the villagers refused. The group of officers was reportedly led by police officer U Kyaw and accompanied by Maung Nama Village administrative officer U Thein Tun and the village’s former administrative chairman, U Thein Maung Gyi.

After being refused Mr. Dilu said that police officers and U Thein Tun took around 7 Visses of beef, but the villagers somehow managed to take back their beef. This gave rise to a clash between the two groups, and eventually police officers fired two shots into the air and then fled from the scene as people rushed to help their fellow villagers.

A village administrative officer who declined to be named said that an hour later three trucks of riot police (Hluntin) came to the village and looking for villagers who actively took part in the clash, but nobody was arrested because the villagers ran away.

The village administrative officer also noted that police officers returned to the village again that night and proceeded to arrest villagers inside their homes. The officers first entered Ms. Sura Khatun’s house, injuring the woman and arresting her son Batoo in the process. They also arrested Hafez Ahmed and one other villager.

According to a local youth, the authorities are deliberately creating a problem with villagers to make the situation unstable in the village.