Five people, including an elected lawmaker and three police defectors, were killed by a powerful blast in Bago Region’s Pyay Township on Monday, according to local sources.
Thet Win Hlaing, a regional MP from the National League for Democracy (NLD), and the three police officers were in hiding at a home in Zee Oke village tract when the explosion occurred at around 5pm, the sources told Myanmar Now.
According to a local man who retrieved the bodies, the owner of the home was the fifth victim of the blast. A fourth police defector was also critically injured and is currently receiving treatment at Pyay Hospital after losing both arms, the man added.
The cause of the explosion could not be confirmed, but there was speculation that it might have been a parcel bomb.
“As far as I know, the explosion went off when they opened a package,” said a local source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The lawmaker and the police officers had been in hiding in the village since the military ousted the elected civilian government and seized power on February 1.
Soon after the explosion, ten trucks loaded with soldiers and police arrived at the village, another Pyay local said, citing what villagers told him.
The bodies of the five deceased people are being kept at the Pyay Hospital’s morgue, he added.
Myanmar Now is still gathering information about the explosion and the details of the police defectors who were killed.
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