A university student was tortured to death in military custody after being detained during a raid by junta forces on Talokmyo Village-tract in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region on Wednesday, according to sources close to him.
Family members were told on Thursday morning to collect the body of Ko Zin Ko Tun, who was arrested with five other students during the raid on Talokmyo on Wednesday afternoon.
“He was struck by a bullet in Talokmyo and arrested. And he died in military custody,” a source said.
Ko Zin Ko Tun, a first-year IT student from Myingyan, had only an arm wound when he was taken away by the junta forces. “He was still alive when he was arrested. All six were beaten with rifle butts as junta forces arrested them. He died during interrogation. Another one who was hit in the leg also reportedly had his leg amputated,” said a source close to Ko Zin Ko Tun.
Junta forces planted weapons on the six when photographing them immediately after their arrest to make the crime look more serious. When the military’s mouthpiece, Myawaddy TV, reported the news, Ko Zin Ko Tun was not shown, and more arms and ammunition were displayed instead.
“In the first photo, they [junta forces] intentionally added their weapons. And more weapons were added in the photo published by Myawaddy. They are attempting to make it appear as if a more serious crime occurred,” a source close to Ko Zin Ko Tun said.
“The pictures published by Myawaddy intend to make the crime look more serious. It was unnecessarily cruel of the junta forces to use more than 400 troops to launch a violent crackdown on unarmed civilians,” a Talokmyo resident said.
Of the six, five including a woman are university students from Myingyan. The identity of the sixth is still unknown.
They were in Talokmyo to help villagers with their resistance movement against the military regime.
Junta troops detained between 50 and 100 civilians in the raid Wednesday morning in Talokmyo. The clash began on Tuesday afternoon when more than 100 regime troops attempted to enter Talokmyo. Faced with unexpected resistance from the villagers, some 400 more soldiers were brought in on Wednesday morning to attack the village-tract.
Two junta troops were killed and three injured in the shootout. Three civilians were injured. Locals have fled their villages following the raid, but junta forces are searching for them in nearby forests.
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