The Mandalay city development office and four township tax offices were targeted in bomb attacks on the junta’s administrative mechanism on Monday, according to local sources.
A source close to the staff at the city development office in Chanayethazan Township said that the 11am explosion took place during a meeting with staff across multiple administrative departments.
“A lot of people were present. They threw a bomb at the hall but it fell at the entrance. It was so loud that it shook the buildings,” the source said.
“Everyone in the hall started panicking. Police officers and soldiers arrived soon after the blast and made everyone present sit in the office yard and they started their inspection [of the scene].”
He added that he believed no one was injured in the blast, and that those present at the office did not see the perpetrator.
A local who was near the scene of the explosion said he fled the area as soon as it occurred.
“I was driving by the office when the blast took place. Even my car was shaken by the noise. I didn’t dare to go check [what had happened], so I just hurried home,” he said.
A phone belonging to associate secretary of Mandalay’s city development committee Thet Naung Tun was turned off at the time of reporting, leaving Myanmar Now unable to inquire about the incident.
A group calling itself “Justice Mandalay People Defense Force” claimed responsibility for the attack on the municipal office through a statement published on social media.
At around noon on the same day, blasts struck four tax offices in Pyigyidagun, Chanmyathazi, Chanayethazan and Maha Aungmyay townships; at the time of reporting, no group had claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Locals in the townships speculated that staff present in the offices at the time of the bombings could have been injured, but Myanmar Now was unable to confirm this information.
According to a report on Monday by Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) Burmese service citing information provided by the military’s spokesperson, two blasts occurred within the compounds of the Mandalay municipal office and the internal revenue office and three staff members and a civilian who came there to pay taxes were injured.
Armed resistance groups have repeatedly attacked the junta’s administrative pillars in recent months in an attempt to weaken their governance. Mandalay-based resistance forces have focused their attacks on junta-appointed administrators, suspected military informants, administrative offices, and military bases in the region.
While the majority of civil servants who worked in local administrative offices prior to Myanmar’s February 1 coup have gone on strike in accordance with the Civil Disobedience Movement aimed at toppling the junta, only a few hundred out of the more than 6,000 staff of the Mandalay city development committee have walked out of their jobs.
Anti-coup protesters—whose movement has been brutally suppressed in Mandalay—have urged the public not to pay taxes on electricity, water and land in order to withhold funds from the coup regime.
The tax offices targeted in Monday’s attacks were known to have pressured local people to pay their taxes to the junta, locals said.
