YANGON — A police lieutenant in northern Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township was shot to death on Tuesday by a junior officer who also wounded a sergeant.
A constable at the Kyauktaw police station said the shooting occurred inside the compound of the Kan Sauk police regiment, which sits in a rural area far from the township’s urban center, and that the lieutenant’s body was taken to Kyauktaw General Hospital on Wednesday morning. He declined to comment further and directed additional questions to the Apauk Wa police station.
Kyauktaw resident and activist Ko Zaw Win said he went to see the body at the hospital and identified the victim as Maung Maung Lay, who was recently transferred from Tin Ma Village to the Kan Sauk police regiment.
“The police officer was shot with about six bullets and died on the spot. Another sergeant was shot twice but he is now receiving medical treatment at Sittwe Hospital,” he said.
Rakhine State police chief Col. Kyi Lin and Kyauktaw Township police chief Saw Aye Lwin declined to comment.
Rakhine State lawmaker U Maung Than Sein, of the Arakan National Party (ANP), said he spoke with a village administrator who lives near the Kan Sauk police regiment compound who confirmed the shooting but did not know why it occurred.
The cause of the shooting remains unclear.
A police officer with the Kyauktaw police told The Irrawaddy’s Sittwe correspondence under condition of anonymity that some police officers had had a dispute on Tuesday and that a corporal shot two of his superiors at about 4 p.m. The officer identified the shooter as Kyaw Aye Sein and said he was taken into custody by Kyauktaw police.
The Myanmar army’s Light Infantry Battalion 539 and an artillery unit are currently stationed at the foot of the Kan Sauk mountain range along with the police regiment.
