Anti Muslim violence in Thuyethamain village on 23rd June 2016

A group of 11 people from Thuyethamain village sent a complaint letter to the Township Development Committee on 6 June, stating that they suspected that a warehouse under construction in the village was actually projected to be used as an Islamic school. The warehouse was being built on a plot of land owned by U Rashid, situated in the street no 2 of the village’s ward no. 2. The township authorities visited the village on 17 June to verify the complaint. The tension between the two communities increased as a result of an argument between U Rashid and one of his Buddhist neighbors, Daw Khin Aye Nu. An argument broke out on 23rd June, when U Rashid verbally attack at the people who had made the complaint over the construction of his warehouse, and soon about 200 members of the Buddhist community gathered near U Rashid’s home. When the police, led by the superintendent of the village police station, arrived to arrest U Rashid, he had sustained injuries on his head by a mob. After the arrests were made, the police questioned people on both sides. While the interrogations were going on, a group of 500 people destroyed the warehouse under construction owned by U Rashid, the mosque, the Madrasa (Islamic school) and the Muslim cemetery of the village. The attackers were divided into smaller groups in a systematic manner to carry out simultaneously the destruction of the sites.
Thuyethamain village.

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This post is in: Crimes Against Humanity, Human Rights, Law