“It is learnt that two of the accused ran away from the police lock-up after 2 am [on Friday], but we do not know yet how they escaped from the detention”, said a source close to the police.

An official of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party in Kyauktaw, who wishes to be unnamed, also confirmed the incident saying that the two runaways are those who had confessed to the murder of U Kyaw Maung Chay in Kyauktaw Township Court on Thursday, the day before their escape.

Those two escapees were arrested by the police along with five other men from Muslim Paikthe Village in Kyauktaw on charges of murdering U Kyaw Maung Chay.

U Kyaw Maung Chay (64) was brutally murdered on the evening of September 11 on his way back home to Tharat Oak Village from downtown Kyauktaw after taking the money sent by his son working in Malaysia.

When asking about the escape another resident in Kyauktaw told Narinjara, “I have heard that the police and army have searched for those escapees. It is not possible for me to go and see the situation there, so I tell you what I have heard from the villagers there.”

According to local residents, the two accused bent the iron bars of the lock-up in the police station after tying their sarongs around them and escaped from the station while the police on duty were drunk and asleep in the station.

Narinjara has contacted that police station in Kyauktaw by phone and inquired about the incident, but it cut the phone call off without giving any answer.