At least 10 civilians were arrested for the suspected planning of an attack on the military parade for Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw on Monday, attended by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Two locals who spoke to Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity said that most of those who were detained were from the Zayarthiri Township village of Zee Hpyu Pin, located nine miles south of Shan Su town.
At the time of reporting, Myanmar Now was unable to confirm the condition of those taken into military custody.
On Tuesday, junta-controlled media reported that two men from Zee Hpyu Pin—Sein Lwin and Win Myo Htet—had been arrested and two 107mm rockets confiscated on March 24.
The military council alleged that Sein Lwin and Win Myo Htet had been taught how to use the weapons—which can only be fired at distances of three to five miles from their targets—by the leader of the Naypyitaw People’s Defence Force (PDF) in Pyinmana Township’s Mayan Taung village two days earlier. Explosive devices and more arms were said to have been found near the community.
They claimed that the resistance officer, Tayza, had travelled to the area from Pekhon Township in southern Shan State for the purpose of instructing the men how to fire the weapons.
The rockets were reportedly found in a mango orchard owned by the former administrator for Zee Hpyu Pin—a member of the National League for Democracy, whose government was ousted in the February 2021 military coup. He was in hiding and not apprehended during the raid, according to local sources.
Naypyitaw PDF leader Tayza told Myanmar Now that while there was initially a plan in place to strike the military parade, it had been abandoned, and that none of those who were detained by the junta had any connection to the plot.
“The actual people who planned the attack already fled,” he explained, without identifying the individuals.
Soldiers manning a junta checkpoint near a bridge outside Zee Hpyu Pin have since been harassing and interrogating people passing through the area, one of the locals who spoke to Myanmar Now said.
“They’re stopping everyone who they think is suspicious and are inspecting and sometimes even arresting them,” the man said.
Resistance forces in the region conducted several anti-junta operations on Armed Forces Day, including shooting up the police station in Nyaung Kone village in Mandalay’s Pyawbwe Township, 60 miles from Naypyitaw.
