Maungdaw District Police Office ordered police officers from Maungdaw and Buthidaung in Rakhine State to search the Rohingya village of Fayazi on the morning of 4 October according to Amin an elder from the village.
He said: "More than 200 police personnel came to our village while all the male villagers had gone to the market and only women were at home."
Police officers in groups of five went inside each house. Once inside they asked the women to open all their cupboards and boxes. They then just threw the contents of all the cupboards and boxes onto the floor. They also asked if there were any kitchen knives and seized them so that they could not be used as weapons.
Whist they were conducting the searches the police officers also stole and pocketed any money and gold they came across as well as taking anything else they liked the look of.
Amina, a housewife from the village said there was no stopping the police, they just did and took what they wanted.
Halim, a human rights watchdog from Maungdaw said that the police gave no reason for searching the village, they did not inform any village elders about the search and they were not accompanied by a village administration officer, all of which caused the villagers to panic.
A retired school teacher from Maungdaw said that this was a new plan by the authorities to harass and scare the inhabitants so that they would leave their homes.
Edited in English for BNI by Mark Inkey
