A Muslim teenager was allegedly stabbed to death by a Buddhist monk in what the victim’s brother described as a racially motivated attack.
Ko Ko Zaw, 16, was helping push a car out of the mud when Tun Naing Win, 42, stabbed him in the neck on Sunday morning (June 18) in Magway region’s Aung Lan township, according to police.
Tun Naing Win, who reportedly served in the Myanmar military, was detained the same day and charged with murder under section 302 of the Penal Code, local deputy chief of police, Soe Nyunt Oo, told Myanmar Now.
The suspect was transported to regional Thayet Prison, he added.
Ko Ko Zaw, his two brothers and the man driving their motorised tricycle were travelling to a nearby village to sell goats, according to one of the brothers, Ko Ko Maung, 26.
“We saw a car stuck in the mud near Sakhan Gyi village, and everyone on our tricycle decided to help them,” Ko Ko Maung told Myanmar Mix. “The monk was watching us, and he told us we were not welcome there, and that if we did not properly help the car, he would kill us.”
The brothers told Tun Naing Win they would push hard, he said, while other people at the scene told the brothers not to worry.
He said Tun Naing Win, who was dressed in robes and holding a satchel, then called the brothers “kalar,” a racial term for people of South Asian descent that was subject to an anti-racism campaign in Myanmar this month. The campaign was widely dismissed by social media users, who said the word was deployed innocently.
“The monk said, ‘you kalars do not own this country, you kalars do not own this road, make it quick,’” said Ko Ko Maung. “We didn’t know what he was mad about, but he kept watching us, like he was planning something.”
Everyone in the group kept their distance from the monk, he explained, besides Ko Ko Zaw, who was “focused on working and didn’t care much about what was going on.”
The monk then pulled out a knife from his satchel and stabbed Ko Ko Zaw in the back and neck, he said.
“We thought it was a pat on the back at first and didn’t notice our brother getting murdered. It was when the monk stabbed a second time and shouted, ‘motherfucking kalars, I will kill you all’ we noticed something was happening,” he added.
The two brothers approached Ko Ko Zaw and Tun Naing Win, but the monk “tried to cut anyone who came close,” said Ko Ko Maung.
“My other brother almost got cut. The monk dropped my brother and retreated a few steps back,” he said.
Other people at the scene surrounded the monk to protect him from the other two brothers, said Ko Ko Maung. They took Ko Ko Zaw in the tricycle, but “he was already dead on the way to the hospital,” he said.
Ko Ko Maung added that the brothers had never met the monk before and had not “done anything that would cause this violence upon us.”
When asked if he believed the attack was racially motivated, Ko Ko Maung replied, “What else could it be? My brother is already dead so it’s no use hating on anyone. We want proper justice according to the law.”
While the victim’s family said he was 16 years old, The Irrawaddy, Myanmar Now, and The Magway Post reported his age as 19.
Township police chief Khin Soe told The Magway Post that the attack was not religiously or racially motivated and that Ko Ko Zaw was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“There was a crowd of people helping the stuck car out. This was when the monk approached them swinging a knife. He wasn’t specifically targeting anyone, he was just swinging. Unfortunately, the victim happened to be standing in the monk’s vicinity and got stabbed,” he said.
Regional parliamentarian Aye Kyaw told Myanmar Now that the “possibility this was all premeditated” could be a “huge problem.”
“It was quite worrying that he [Tun Naing Win] was originally from the Tatmadaw. However, the monk’s family said he wasn’t mentally sane so that relieves me quite a bit,” he said.
In response to the attack, Yangon punk band Rebel Riot posted a video recording of their 2014 song “Stop racism, against 969, fascist monks.”
The band, who are known for standing up to hardline nationalists and speaking out for minorities through their music, criticize the anti-Muslim 969 nationalist movement in the song.
“People’s blind nationalism,” sings lead vocalist Kyaw Kyaw, “using religion for social hatred.”
