Two daughters of a coup council-appointed village administrator in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township were stabbed to death on Sunday, according to residents.
Villagers found the bodies of the two women—Than Than Sint, a school teacher in her 30s, and San, in her 40s—with visible stab wounds at around 6:30pm on Sunday near Mu Creek in the village of Kyi.
“I thought they were in an accident near Mu Creek. We realised they were dead only when we looked at them closely. We don’t know who stabbed them,” a Kyi local told Myanmar Now, adding that the two women were known to be “supporters of the military.”
“If something happened in the village, they would report it to the army. All of their family members are informers,” the local said.
The women’s father, Kyi’s village administrator, fled the area with his other family members following the murder of his daughters.
Than Than Sint’s and San’s bodies were taken to a local hospital morgue to undergo post-mortem examinations. One villager has been arrested by the military authorities on the suspicion of being involved in the killings, but locals say he was not connected to the crime.
“They arrested a man who had nothing to do with the murders. He is an honest man. He will be released because he is not a murderer,” another villager from Kyi said.
Also on Sunday evening, another former village administrator in the area was shot in the head at 6pm in Inpin village, around 20km from Kyi. Bo Tint, who was in his 50s, died at the scene.
He had been accused of being a military informant regarding anti-coup activities due to his close ties to the army, a resident said.
Following the murders, 16 military vehicles were deployed to Kyi and Inpin villages on Monday morning. Villagers said that regime troops also opened fire on the villages of Satpyarkyin and Boke, 3km west of Kyi.
Kyi is home to more than 300 households. Locals estimate that around one-third of the community has pro-junta leanings.
The village is known as the site of a 2003 attack on a convoy of National League for Democracy supporters, including party chair Aung San Suu Kyi. Some 70 people were killed there in what became known as the Depayin Massacre.
More recently, Depayin Township has become a stronghold for anti-military protests since the February 1 coup.
On June 8, the junta’s armed forces raided a Buddhist monastery in Depayin’s Yin village, alleging that it was the site of a training for civilian armed resistance. A shootout subsequently took place between the military and members of a local defence group.
On March 18, two regime policemen were killed and another was injured in a clash between police and local residents near Titaw and Thabyaygon villages in Depayin. The army was then deployed to the villages, forcing many of the residents to flee.
