Two police outposts were burned down in Sagaing Region’s Htigyaing Township on Monday evening, with locals speculating that the act was carried out by local anti-junta resistance forces.
On Sunday night, the abandoned office of the police station in Ah Lel Taw village—around five miles from Htigyaing town—was torched, according to a local from the village.
“The main office building was set on fire and the vehicle parked nearby also exploded after catching fire. No people or police or soldiers were staying there,” the local said.
The following day, another police outpost in Kanni village, four miles from Htigyaing, was also set on fire. Buildings used as a jail and a staff residence were reportedly burned down.
“I think they fired four or five shots after torching the buildings. There weren’t any police or members of their families present at the outpost,” a Htigyaing local told Myanmar Now of the incident in Kanni.
Police had reportedly left the outposts four months ago.
A local with connections to the Htigyaing People’s Defence Force (PDF) said that by destroying the outposts, it would make it more difficult for the junta’s troops to again station themselves there and further occupy the area.
He added that there were only five police outposts in the whole township, and that even torching one would “have some impact.”
“Because the ones that were torched were regional outposts, [the resistance forces] only have the township police station left to attack. Frankly, I think they’re taking it up a notch bit by bit,” the local said.
Myanmar army troops have reportedly not come to investigate the incident.
Nearly all of Htigyaing’s 30 junta-appointed local administrators resigned after the local PDF published a warning that they do so by the end of September, effectively eliminating the military council’s governance mechanism in the area.
Several anti-junta resistance forces have been operating around Htigyaing, which has a population of more than 120,000.
Attacks on military bases and police outposts became more frequent in Sagaing Region and neighbouring Chin State after the shadow National Unity Government declared war on the military council on September 7.
Resistance forces also attacked a small police station in Winmana village in Kani Township, also in Sagaing, on September 11 but later had to retreat when the military responded with an airstrike.
