Series of child kidnappings terrorizes Thanbyuzayat residents

January 5, 2016

HURFOM: Thanbyuzayat residents have been living in fear, after a spate of child kidnappings that has reportedly seen nine children abducted from Mon communities in the area.

Just this Tuesday a group of residents in Kyar Kan Quarter, Thanbyuzayat, were arrested after attempting to apprehend a group of people mistakenly suspected of involvement in the abductions.

According to one local, residents demanded that police arrest the group, threatening that they would kill the suspected kidnappers if the police refused to detain them.

According to Kyae Mon Ong, a journalist from the Than Lwin Times, hundreds of local residents armed with sticks and knives gathered and proceeded to chase the suspects.

Kyae Mon Ong detailed, “They beat up and tried to capture the group…Child kidnapping has been very big news around Thanbyuzayat lately. Many children have disappeared…[Residents] are angry about the kidnappings. If they had caught the group they would have beaten them to death”.

Local police responded by taking some of the vigilante attackers into custody.

Residents’ mistaken suspicions about the group are thought to originate from rumours that eight people from Myitkyina, and of Shan-Chinese descent, were to blame for the recent spate of kidnappings, and were still at large in the area. While the rumours were correct to some degree, they failed to account for the fact that the eight suspect individuals had already been arrested in November in connection to the kidnappings, in Kwan Hlar village and Mudon town.

Local residents spoke out about how the five suspects arrested in Kwan Hlar village were alleged to have been posing as dentists in Yin Don and Kwan Hlar villages, lying in wait by the roadside and approaching unsupervised children, offering them money. They were also reported to have stopped families travelling on motorbikes, offering them dental services.

A local explained, “We were interested in this group because they told the children, ‘Uncles will come again’. People heard about this and we were suspicious about what they were doing. The villagers were waiting for them, waiting to arrest them”.

When the group returned to Kwan Hlar, local residents immediately approached three of them to check their identification. When they failed to produce ID, and when their dental credentials came into question after a phone call to Thanbyuzayat hospital, a large group of villagers surrounded the three ‘dentists’, capturing them and driving them to the NMSP office to the east of Yin Don.

Two of their associates, who fled after seeing the arrests, were also eventually detained by police, after trying to escape to Thanbyuzayat.

All suspects captured by Kwan Hlar villagers remain in custody while the allegations against them are investigated. Meanwhile, families in the area continue to live in fear, with no confirmation that all perpetrators behind the kidnappings have been caught.

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