CHAMPHAI, India (Reuters) – When Tha Peng was ordered to shoot protesters with his machine gun on February 27 to disperse them in the city of Khampat in Myanmar, the police station said he refused.
“The next day an officer called to ask me if I would shoot,” he said. The 27-year-old refuses again and then resigns from power.
On March 1, he said he left his home and family in Khampat and traveled for three days, mostly at night to avoid detection, before moving to the north-eastern state of Mizoram in India.
“I had no choice,” Tha Peng said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday. He gave only part of his name to protect his identity. Reuters has seen its police and national ID cards confirming the name.
Tha Peng said he and six colleagues did not comply with the Feb. 27 order of a senior officer he did not name.
Reuters could not independently verify its or other accounts collected near the border between Myanmar and India.
The description of the events was similar to that given to police in Mizoram on March 1 by another Myanmar police station and three constables who had moved to India, according to an internal police document seen by Reuters.
The document was written by Mizoram police officers and contains biographical details of the four individuals and their report on why they fled. It is not aimed at specific people.
“As the civil disobedience movement gains momentum and protest (s) are held by protesters against state capture in various places, we are instructed to shoot at the protesters,” they said in a joint statement to Mizoram police.
“In such a scenario, we do not have the chance to shoot at our own people who are peaceful protesters,” they said.
Myanmar’s military junta, which carried out a coup on February 1 and ousted the country’s civilian government, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The junta said it was acting with the utmost restraint in dealing with what it described as protests by “rioting protesters” against whom they accused of attacking police and harming national security and stability.
Tha Peng’s is one of the first cases reported by the media of police fleeing Myanmar after failing to obey orders from the military junta’s security forces.
Protests are being staged daily against the coup across the country and security forces have caged. More than 60 protesters were killed and more than 1,800 arrested, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group, said.
Reuters could not independently confirm the figures.
Among those detained is Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the civilian government.
DOZENS FLIGHT
About 100 people from Myanmar, mostly policemen and their families, have crossed a porous border into India since the protests began, according to a senior Indian official.
Several people took refuge in the Champhai district in Mizoram, which borders Myanmar, where Reuters was interviewed by three Myanmar citizens who said they had served with the police.
In addition to his ID cards, Tha Peng showed an undated photo of him wearing a police uniform in Myanmar. He said he joined the force nine years ago.
Tha Peng said protesters, according to police rules, should be stopped by rubber bullets or shot below the knees. Reuters could not verify the police policy.
But he ordered his leaders to ‘shoot until they were dead’, he added.
Ngun Hlei, who said he was posted as a police constable in the city of Mandalay, said he was also given orders to shoot. He did not give a date nor did he determine whether the order was to shoot to kill. He did not give details about any victims.
The 23-year-old also gave only a portion of his full name and took his national ID card with him.
Tha Peng and Ngun Hlei said they believe the police are acting on behalf of the Myanmar army, known as the Tatmadaw. They did not provide evidence.
According to the classified police document, the other four police officers in Myanmar agreed.
“… the army has put pressure on the police, who are mostly constables, to confront the people,” they said.
Ngun Hlei said he was reprimanded for not obeying orders and was transferred. He sought online help from pro-democracy activists and on March 6 found his way to Mizoram’s Vaphai town.
The trip to India cost him about 200,000 Myanmar kyat ($ 143), Ngun Hlei said.
Although the Indian-Myanmar border is guarded by Indian paramilitary forces, there is a ‘free movement regime’ that allows people to venture a few kilometers to Indian territory without requiring travel permits.
‘DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK’
The 24-year-old Dal said she worked as a constable with the Myanmar police in the mountain town of Falam in northwestern Myanmar. Reuters saw a photo of her police ID and verified the name.
Her work was mostly administrative, including compiling lists of people detained by the police. But as protests erupted in the aftermath of the coup, she said she was instructed to try to catch female protesters – an order she refused.
Fearing imprisonment on the part of the protesters and their civil disobedience movement, she said she decided to flee Myanmar.
All three said protesters had support in the Myanmar police force for the protesters.
“Inside the police station, 90% support the protesters, but there is no leader to unite them,” said Tha Peng, who left behind his wife and two young daughters, one six-year-old.
Like some others who have crossed paths in recent days, the three are spread across Champhai, supported by a network of local activists.
Saw Htun Win, deputy commissioner of the Falam district in Myanmar, last week asked Champhai’s top government official, deputy commissioner Maria CT Zuali, to return eight policemen who had entered India to them for the friendly relations between the two neighboring countries. . ”
Zuali confirmed that she had received the letter, of which Reuters had seen a copy.
Zoramthanga, Mizoram’s prime minister, told Reuters his government would provide temporary food and shelter to those fleeing Myanmar, but a decision on repatriation is pending with the federal government of India.
Tha Peng said that although he missed his family, he was afraid to return to Myanmar.
“I do not want to go back,” he says, sitting in a room on the first floor overlooking green hills that stretch into Myanmar.
Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal, Additional Reporting by Reuters Staff; Edited by Mike Collett-White