NAYPYITAW, 02 September 2021, (TON): Hundreds of police officers and soldiers arrested 31 young men from three villages in rural Sintgaing Township in Mandalay Region.

The troops travelled to Mon Pin, Kan Gyi and Ywar Bo villages in 10 military trucks and detained those they met on site.

The troops arrived in Mon Pin, around a one-hour drive from downtown Sintgaing, at around 6am and arrested around 25 people, mostly men in their 20s, after ransacking the village for an hour.

“They didn’t say what they were looking for. They were basically here for illegal portering,” a Mon Pin resident said, referring to the longtime military practice of forcing local men to carry goods, work as guides, or otherwise serve the army.

The local said “many fled the village. Those who were left were arrested,”,

He added that the young men who were detained were farmers and not involved in political activities.

Another local said that the mass arrests follow frequent raids on villages around Sintgaing, carried out since an alleged military informant was shot and killed in July by anti-junta resistance forces.

He said “I think they were looking for members of the local People’s Defence Force [PDF] but the people who were arrested were just civilians.”