Man shot dead and taken away by the military in Mandalay

A 22-year-old man was shot dead in Mandalay’s Chanmyatharzi Township on Saturday and his body was taken away by the military, witnesses told Myanmar Now.

At around 10:30am on Saturday, regime forces began stopping motorcycles to search under their seats and seize their owners’ phones. To distract them, a young man, later identified as Kaung Htet Naing, started setting tires on fire at the corner of 65th and 107th streets.

“They were checking people and he was trying to distract them. But he didn’t know there were police in plain clothes nearby,” a witness said.

When the police saw what he was doing, they started shooting. He was running away when he was hit at least twice, in the head and the stomach, on 64th Street.

When the police arrived, they began beating Kaung Htet Naing, who appeared to be motionless, and then dragged him away to a car, the witness said.

“He couldn’t move after being shot. But they kept on beating him and saying, ‘Do you want to keep setting things on fire?’ They took him to a car and washed the blood off the street themselves,” the witness added.

Meanwhile, the junta’s armed forces also shot at least one person in Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay Township on Saturday morning.

That incident occurred after soldiers dispersed a group of protesters and continued firing on them as they fled into a residential area. 

According to a rescue worker, one 20-year-old resident of the neighbourhood was shot in the back and chest and at least five protesters were arrested.

“He was not part of the protest. He was from the neighbourhood,” said the rescue worker, who added that he had heard that some of the detained protesters were beaten before they were taken away.

One resident of the area told Myanmar Now that he witnessed an attack on one of the protesters.

“The troops accused him of trying to grab the gun from them. They beat him with the butts of their guns and arrested him with his injuries,” the local resident said. 

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on April 25 to include the name and age of the victim in Chanmyatharzi Township, which was not known at the original time of reporting.