200 Myanmar police, family members now in India
13 March, 2021
Scores of Myanmar policemen and their own families have finally fled to India, security officials said on Friday (Mar 12), with one officer telling AFP that the authorities are actually "beating and torturing" protestors.
Myanmar's military authorities will be cracking straight down with increasing severity on daily protests against their Feb 1 coup, with at least 70 persons killed in line with the UN's leading rights professional on the country.
Since then a growing stream of people, many of them police refusing to take part in the crackdown, have crossed over the border into the north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram.
As of Friday, a complete of 264 people had done as a result, including 198 police officers and members of the family, security officials said.
"The reason why to come over from Myanmar to India is basically because I don't want to serve under the military junta," among the officers, who didn't desire to be identified, told AFP.
"The next reason is that if I quit from the military junta and I join with the persons, I believe we can win the fight the military junta," he said.
He added that the authorities were conducting "beating or torturing as they want".
"I have witnessed the police arresting as many persons as they can easily see, even the people who are not signing up for the protest and standing on the medial side to just watch or have a photo," he added.
India authorities have "pushed back" eight of these who've crossed the border, the reliability source said. A local village chief advised AFP this week that a large number of others were waiting to enter India.
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