A regional office of the National League for Democracy, the party of detained Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was bombed in Mandalay on Wednesday night in the latest in a series of attacks on the party’s offices across the country.
The ruling party of Myanmar since 2016, the NLD won a landslide victory in last year’s general election. However, the military said the polls were fraudulent and staged a coup in February.
Residents near the five-story office building in Chanayethazan Township said two blasts occurred on two floors of the office building at around midnight, during the regime’s 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. nighttime curfew hours, when civilians are not allowed outdoors.
They said the intensity of the explosion was strong enough to rock some buildings in the neighborhood, and some had their houses’ windows broken.
An NLD member said residents told him that some junta troops went into the office building just before the blasts.
“I think they [the junta] intentionally destroyed the office to demolish it. All the things inside the office were destroyed by the blasts. I’m speechless,” said the NLD member, who asked not to be named for security reasons.
The building has been sealed by the junta since the February coup, in which almost all of the party’s leaders, including its chairwoman Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members, were arrested.
On Oct. 16, unknown people destroyed a number of portraits of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that had been hanging in the office.
The NLD’s headquarters and party offices across the country have been raided and sealed by the junta since the coup. Most of the party’s members have been targeted with arrest and lawsuits or are in hiding.
In recent days, three NLD township offices in in Mon State, a regional office in Dawei and the Myeik Township office in Tanintharyi Region were also bombed.
Following the coup, the junta accused the NLD of electoral fraud and association with some organizations that they have outlawed. It has threatened to abolish the party on the grounds that associating with outlawed organizations is a violation of the country’s electoral laws.
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