Police are investigating the murder of a 36-year-old Rohingya Muslim spiritual leader whose dead body was found packed into a plastic bag and thrown in the gutter in Yangon’s Thingangyun Township.
Abdul Shakur, who lived in Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township, was last seen at his home at around 6pm Wednesday, according to police, who have not yet identified a suspect or motive for the killing.
At the 8-story apartment block where he had lived with one 19-year-old flatmate, for the past six months, neighbors and friends, who did not want to be identified, told Coconuts Yangon they tried to call him later that night but his phone was off.
His body was discovered early Thursday morning beside a bus stop, said police.
Images circulated online showed gruesome slash marks on the victim’s face, neck and back.
Interviews are being conducted with his friends and neighbors.
Myanmar has a population of more than one million Rohingya Muslims, who have mostly been confined to internal displacement camps and villages in the western part of the country since intercommunal violence broke out in 2012.
Anti-Rohingya sentiment is running high, with Buddhist nationalists organizing protests around the country against the use of the very word ‘Rohingya’ to describe the group, who they insist are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Police have not identified the murder of Abdul Shakur as a hate crime.
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