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A group of Myanmar policemen have recounted their escape to India after defying orders from the Myanmar army to shoot at people who oppose the February 1 coup in the Southeast Asian country. As they spoke, they raised a three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance to Myanmar’s military rulers.
“We can’t hurt our people, that’s why we came to Mizoram,” said one of the policemen, a native of the northwestern city of Tedim. Mizoram is a state in northeast India and shares a border with Bangladesh and Myanmar.
After the army coup, the policemen were ordered to “shoot people and not just people, they told us to shoot our own family if they are not on the side of the army,” he said. the Associated Press has not been able to independently verify these claims.
The Indian villagers of Mizoram have hosted 34 policemen and a firefighter who crossed into India in the past two weeks. They spoke with a AP photojournalist on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals against family members still in Myanmar.
Back in Myanmar, the three-finger salute, which has its origins in The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins books and films, is being used by young protesters in mass demonstrations against the army.
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Meanwhile, K Vanlalvena, a legislator from Mizoram state, urged the Indian government not to deport the refugees from Myanmar until normalcy returns there. The legislator belongs to the Mizo National Front, an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of India.
Anupam Nath / AP
Police officers who fled Myanmar after a military coup show the three-finger salute.
Those who escaped spend their time watching local television and doing daily chores. Some have carried mobile phones and are trying to connect with families they were forced to leave behind. At night, everyone sleeps on mattresses on the floor of a single room.
One of them told the AP who were under the command of the Myanmar army.
“We are all policemen working under the Myanmar government. We left our family in Myanmar. We do not know what is happening to our family, but they will face many problems from the army. We came to Mizoram for refuge, we will die if we go back there, ”he said.
“We cannot communicate with our parents due to telecommunications problems, but what we hear is that they are very afraid to leave their homes … I hope that one day we will meet again,” he added.
Anupam Nath / AP
Police officers who fled Myanmar following a military coup sit down to eat at an undisclosed location on the Myanmar border in northeast India’s Mizoram state.
Earlier this month, Myanmar asked India to return police officers who crossed the border. India shares a 1,643 km border with Myanmar and is home to thousands of Myanmar refugees in different states.
Last week, Ramliana, chairman of a village council in Mizoram State, a community body, said 116 Myanmar citizens crossed the Tiau River and reached Farkawn Village via a stretch where paramilitary personnel from India Assam Rifles was not present. Use a name.
Indian state and federal government officials have not provided an exact number of people from Myanmar who have crossed into India after the coup.
Anupam Nath / AP
India shares a 1,643 km border with Myanmar and is home to thousands of Myanmar refugees in different states.
Last week, the Indian Interior Ministry told four Indian states bordering Myanmar (Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh) to take measures to prevent refugees from entering India except for humanitarian reasons.
The ministry said states were not allowed to grant refugee status to anyone entering India from Myanmar, as India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military for most of its history since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1948. A gradual move towards democracy in the last decade allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to lead a civilian government starting in 2016, though the country’s generals retained substantial power under a military-drafted constitution.
Anupam Nath / AP
Those who escaped spend their time watching local television and doing daily chores. Some of them have carried mobile phones and are trying to connect with families they were forced to leave behind.
His party won last November’s elections by an overwhelming majority, but the military intervened before Parliament met on February 1, detained Suu Kyi and other government officials and instituted a state of emergency for a year.
He maintains that the vote was tainted by fraud and plans to re-investigate those allegations before a new election is held.
Reports on Friday said Myanmar authorities arrested a spokesman for the political party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as they stepped up efforts to quell the dissemination of information about the growing protests against the military takeover last month.
Despite the crackdown that has killed more than 200 protesters so far, protesters returned to the streets on Friday morning (local time) in various cities and towns.
