Decapitated Body of Activist Found in Katha Jungles
By Network Media Group
Saturday, July 29, 2023
Regime soldiers allegedly murdered a political activist who was detained a month earlier near the town of Katha. His decapitated body was discovered in western Katha Township last week, with his head, legs and arms and other body parts scattered in different directions into the jungles of Pinmalut.
“They probably killed Ko Zaw Naing because he refused to provide accurate information during interrogation,” said a man with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. The regime soldiers had accused the activist of conspiring with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the People’s Defence Force (PDF), he explained.
The KIA collected his body parts for burial in the township located in Sagaing Region.
The Military Council has been sending marauding soldiers to the township, where there’s currently no fighting. The 121st Infantry Battalion from Nga-O burned 22 homes in the village of Inn Drang in the eastern township on July 22, a woman told NMG, requesting that her name be withheld out of concern for her security.
“They burned all the locked houses in the village, but they didn’t burn the tea shop near the boat dockyard. After they returned to 309st Light Infantry Battalion in Katha town.”
Before the village attack, soldiers arrived at Thae Chan before splitting up, she says. Some travelled to Palway Shwe to stay in U Tin Hla’s mango garden, and the others headed to Inn Drang.
Fearful of the regime’s forces, many villagers in Sagaing Region have been abducted or summarily executed without any evidence during the regime’s offensives in the area. This campaign of terror is aimed at weakening support for the numerous resistance groups fighting against the military dictatorship in the region referred to as Burma’s heartland.
