Maungdaw, Arakan State: Nasaka, Burma’s border security force killed three robbers on May 8 while they were fleeing after a robbery in a village Peace and Development Council (VPDC) chairman’s house in Maungdaw Township, said a local fisherman.  

On that day, 24 robbers from Bangladesh went to the VPDC Chairman’s house to commit robbery after crossing the Naff Riber in a rowing boat. The group of robbers is notorious and frequently cross the Naff River with locally made guns and committed the robbery in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships.

They robbed the house in the guise of Nasaka personnel by saying that they wanted to check the house whether there were extra people in the family list. The chairman opened the door believing that they were Nasaka people. Entering the house, the robbers confined all the family members in a room at gun point and some of them looted ornaments and cash after taking the keys from the chairman’s wife, said a close friend of the VPDC chairman.  

After the robbery, the family members started shouting and the villagers from nearby houses rushed to the spot, but the robbers started shooting at them. A nearby Nasaka camp was informed immediately and a group of Nasaka men came to the spot and chased the robbers. They shot dead three robbers while they were fleeing in a row boat to Bangladesh, he added.

However, two days later, on May 10, one body was recovered from the Naff River by the Nasaka, but its identity was not confirmed because it was bloated. The two other bodies floating in the Naff River were not picked up by the Nasaka.

The Burmese Army and the Nasaka have been trying to kill or arrest the group of robbers for a long time but in vain. The robbers are from Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships, so they know every road in the area to flee, said a local trader.