Of the 170 criminals on the run from Mon State’s Ye Township police, only five have been arrested, according to a statement by Officer Myint Thaw,head of Ye Township police, at a recent press conference.
Officer Myint Thaw spoke at a press conference held on 28th October at the Aung Myint-Thar Administration Office.
More than 160 criminals are still at large in Ye Township. When questioned as to why the criminals had not been caught yet the township administration official replied that the police station does not have a large enough force to deal with such high numbers and has not received enough information from the public.
He said: “From the force that we have, we assign one police officer per quarter. We won’t be able to go door-to-door, so we depend on the public [for information]. Some of the criminals have died whilst we have been searching, some left for Thailand to work and never came back. Some left for other towns and moved around and many of them have become members of ethnic armed groups."
Some members of the public at the press conference said that people do not report crimes and criminals to the police because they lack confidence in them. This is because the police show no responsibility, or respect for the police code of conduct and lack ethics. This means the identity of and information given by people can be leaked, which makes them feel unsafe.
A youth from Aung Myint-Thar quarter said: “Recently, in our quarter, a drunk guy with a sword attacked and damaged six shops. We told the police and they arrested him. He was only detained for one night and the next morning he was seen back in the ward."
At the press conference, Officer Myint Thaw requested that the public inform him directly of any crime, rather than providing information to the lower-ranked police officers.
The head of police and other attendees have analyzed that the majority of criminals who had committed crimes such as physical assault, murder, the selling of drugs, and theft, were not local people, but migrant workers, and stated that those individuals often hide their ID cards, making it difficult to catch them.
Press conference attendees advised that, in order to decrease the crime rate and successfully arrest suspects, the police should obtain background documents from those who migrate to Ye Township areas and those who work in orchards and plantations, while those coming from far-away to stay in the township should have their ID cards checked.
The Myanmar Police Force said that from 1986 to June 2014 13,404 fugitive criminals have escaped justice and gone on the run. In April 2014 they declared that their aim was to apprehend 10,000 of those fugitives. From April 2014 to September 2014 they managed to apprehend 618 of them.
