Junta accuses anti-regime forces of killing Maungdaw District education officer

By DMG 04 Oct 2022

DMG Newsroom
4 October 2022, Maungdaw 

Myanmar’s military government has accused anti-regime forces of killing Dr. Myint Myint San, the education officer for Maungdaw District, Arakan State, the junta-controlled Myanmar Alinn newspaper reported on Tuesday. 

Dr. Myint Myint San was fatally stabbed inside a two-storey building within the compound of the district education officer’s office in Maungdaw town’s Myo Thu Gyi Ward at about 6 p.m. on October 2, and she was pronounced dead at the local hospital. 

Myanmar Alinn reported that “PDF terrorists killed the Maungdaw District education officer for no reason.” The military junta said Dr. Myint Myint San was stabbed to death by three men. 

There are no “anti-regime” forces in Arakan State, AA spokesman U Khaing Thukha said at an online press conference last month. 

“I don’t know why the military junta said that an anti-regime force killed Dr. Myint Myint San. It is also possible that the military junta has created confusion in Arakan State and is trying to make the people believe it,” said veteran Arakanese politician U Pe Than. 

The regime’s statement said Dr. Daw Myint Myint San was killed by the People’s Defence Force (PDF), the umbrella term for a large collection of armed groups that have arisen to oppose Myanmar’s military regime since it seized power in a February 2021 coup. The statement added that an investigation was underway to arrest and prosecute those involved in the education officer’s killing. 

“I am worried that some residents in Maungdaw will be arrested on suspicion of having ties to the resistance groups,” said an elder in Maungdaw. 

Anti-regime forces have proliferated across Myanmar since the coup on February 1, 2021, which ousted the country’s civilian leadership on the grounds that it had won a general election in November 2020 on fraudulent grounds. Election monitors and much of the international community have dismissed those claims. 

The National Unity Government (NUG) and Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), the latter of which is made up of members of parliament who won the 2020 election, as well as the PDF, have been declared terrorist organisations by Myanmar’s military regime. 

The junta has charged more than 10 people from Arakan State’s Taungup, Thandwe and Mrauk-U townships for allegedly providing financial aid to the PDF and/or NUG, or otherwise having illegal ties to the anti-regime organisations. Among them, at least seven people have been sentenced to 10 years in prison under Section 50(j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law.