A member of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) who was detained by junta forces when he came home to visit his sick mother was found dead in Mandalay Region’s Madaya Township on Sunday, locals said.
Villagers said they found the body of Ye Thu Naing, 31, with a bullet wound in the head outside of a razed PDF base in the forested hills of the southeastern area of the township.
A Madaya resident said Ye Thu Naing was detained on November 19 and then forced to lead soldiers to the base, which had already been abandoned.
“He was made to guide the military to PDF bases two days after his arrest,” the resident told Myanmar Now. “He was made to walk them there with his hands tied behind his back.”
He added: “From what I’ve heard, the places he showed them were empty. The military then torched the empty huts. We thought he would be taken back to detention but the villagers living near the place found his body in the forest.”
Ye Thu Naing has been in hiding since late April, after he became wanted by junta authorities for leaving his government job to join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). He was the first person from his department in Madaya to join the CDM and rallied others to join him.
He later joined the PDF and was arrested when he came home to see his sick mother, according to an officer of the Madaya PDF.
The officer said Ye Thu Naing was followed to the base by some 100 soldiers who were dropped off at the hill by four military trucks. “They tried to raid the PDF base on the hill on the morning of November 22 but on finding it empty they torched the empty huts,” he said.
The villagers didn’t walk up to the top of the hill until several days later, at around 10am on Sunday, when they found the body.
Ye Thu Naing was wearing a black shirt with the Madaya PDF logo on it and blue trousers, a photo of his body shows. He is lying face down in the photo and a wound can be seen in his head.
Ye Thu Naing was wearing plain clothes when he was arrested. The Madaya PDF suggested that soldiers made him wear the PDF shirt in the belief it would help them infiltrate the base.
The military council has not commented on the death of Ye Thu Naing in its soldiers’ custody.
Madaya was one of numerous places across the country where soldiers murdered unarmed anti-coup protesters in March. Six people from the township were among hundreds killed in nationwide crackdowns that prompted the rise of armed groups to fight back against the junta.
Last month, soldiers in Madaya detained and then killed the uncle of an anti-coup activist who had evaded arrest.
In early October, Thein Zaw, a CDM teacher from Madaya, was detained by junta forces. He was forced to guide his captors to his home three days later and was killed en route.
Soldiers raided several villages in Madaya in November and arrested more teachers taking part in CDM.
