An Arakanese youth was killed on Tuesday by a Burmese soldier in Kyauk Pru Township when he was traveling to a village nearby his home in a machine boat along with some of his fellow villagers, said the police and his relatives...
Kyauk Pru : An Arakanese youth was killed on Tuesday by a Burmese soldier in Kyauk Pru Township when he was traveling to a village nearby his home in a machine boat along with some of his fellow villagers, said the police and his relatives.
The youth was identified as Ko Maung Win, the 21-year-old son of U Hla Khin, from Min Kyung Shin Village in Kyauk Pru Township.
A relative of his said, "He went to a nearby village in a machine boat along with eight people. When the machine boat arrived at the army gate stationed at the bridge of Min Chaung, some soldier ordered the machine boat to harbor at the jetty of the army gate. When the boat approached near the jetty, he threw a rope to land to be tied off at a pillar. However, the rope hit an army officer, and a soldier shot him with his gun."
After the shooting, the machine boat harbored at the jetty of the army gate, but army officers ordered the other passengers to take Maung Win to the Kyauk Pru hospital because he had been shot in the leg. Maung Win succumbed to his injury and died from loss of blood during the trip to the hospital in Kyauk Pru.
"The commander from Battalion No. 542, which was responsible for the murder, met with his family in Kyauk Pru before he was buried and gave 100,000 kyat to Maung Win's parents as compensation. The parents accepted the compensation to bury their son because they are very poor," the relative said.
Maung Win was buried at a graveyard in Paik Sit Ward in Kyauk Pru at 2:30 pm on 15 December, after police handed his body over to his family when the autopsy was completed at Kyauk Pru hospital.
A police officer from the Kyauk Pru police station said that the case has been filed at the police station but he does not know when the army will transfer the culprit into police custody. The culprit is currently being detained in Battalion No. 542's lockup.
People in Kyauk Pru are very angry about the murder committed by the Burmese army during a period when locals are facing many difficulties due to the recent attack of Cyclone Giri in the region.
On 2 December, U Sein Hla Kyaw, a village chairman from Nga Ra Ba Chai Village in Pauktaw Township, which was hit hard by the cyclone, was brutally assaulted by army officer Lieutenant Kyaw Kyaw Aung in public because he failed to provide a machine boat to the officer on time. As of yet there has been no disciplinary action taken against the lieutenant.
