YANGON: Myanmar police said yesterday they had arrested three people suspected of planning bomb attacks on mosques, as the country grapples with religious tensions after waves of anti-Muslim violence.
The suspects are all Buddhist men from the western state of Rakhine, where two bouts of unrest last year left scores dead and some 140,000 displaced, mainly Rohingya Muslims.
“They were planning to plant bombs at mosques, after attending training on the border in Karen state,” a police official in Yangon said on condition of anonymity, referring to the country’s eastern frontier.
He said authorities were continuing to investigate the “on-going case.” Myanmar remains tense after eruptions of religious conflict that have killed around 250 people and cast a shadow over much-praised political reforms.
A report in the state-run New Light of Myanmar yesterday said an initial raid on a guesthouse in the Yangon area found one 34-year-old suspect “red-handed making bombs with gunpowder and related materials” on November 13. It said further investigations led police to arrest two more suspects, aged 31 and 28, early Saturday.
The English-language newspaper said one of the men had received training on the border and had received “two ready-to-use” mines and a pack of gunpowder.
AFP
