Narinjara news

Burmese Navy loot fishing boat and throw the crew into the sea

Maungdaw, May 20: On 21^st April members of the Burmese Navy with seven Muslim villagers attacked a fishing boat off Maungdaw coast in the western part of Burma, throwing the crew members into the sea, according to one of the two surviving crew members of the boat.

The three Burmese Navy personnel, one of who was in uniform, came aboard a passenger boat owned by Fazlul Huq (46) from Thawang-chaung village of Maungdaw township drew near to the fishing boat. The passenger boat which carried the Navy personnel was registered with the number of Sa/141/Na Ma 8.

The Navy personnel who had three guns and two radios with them stopped the fishing boat, registered Sa/18/Na Ma 7, owned by U Sayed Qasim (36) of Kanbu village of Maungdaw. Then they demanded the necessary official papers and conducted a thorough search in the boat. They challenged that the papers were fake and demanded kyat 100,000 as bribe. The owner of the boat realizing that they were not after the official papers after all, agreed to pay kyat 50,000, which the members of the Burmese Navy flatly refused.

The three Navy personnel instantly grabbed the money bag of Qasim, the boat owner, which contained about kyat 200,000 that he kept for buying shrimp from fishermen. Afterwards they put the six crew members into the ice boxes kept for preserving fish and threw them into the sea at about 9.30 in the evening.

On 23^rd April a fishing boat from Sittwe spotted two of the six crew members who were thrown into the sea floating in the waters off the coast of Sittwe. They were Syed Qasim and Zia Husein. The unnamed boat later left the survivors on the bank of the Surali creek near Thawangchaung-village under Maungdaw township. The fate of the other four fishermen is still unknown and believed to have drowned in the sea.

The two survivors with the help of a Thawang-chaung village tract Peace and Development Council member lodged a complaint with the Area No. 8 Nasaka Security forces headquarters at Mraunglwet in Maungdaw township regarding the cold-blooded murder of Muslim fishermen.

Till today no action has yet been taken regarding the incidence. The three Navy personnel are from Thawangchaung navy outpost while the missing four fishermen are as follows: Hashib Ullah (25) son of Muhammad Hussein of Kambu village of Maungdaw, Hali Ullah (45) son of Nazir Ahmed of Kambu village, Abu Taher (48) son of Abdus Salam of Kyaukpandu village of Maungdaw, and Abdul Mottalib (22) son of Abdus Salam of Thawangchaung village of Maungdaw. #