Suspect in violent robbery of writer’s widow charged

Thursday, 14 October 2010 22:56 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A suspect in the brick attack and robbery of the widow of deceased writer Tekkatho (university) Phone Naing, was detained on Wednesday, a Rangoon policeman said.

“We arrested him [the suspect] at about 1 p.m. yesterday”, the officer said on condition of anonymity.

Alleged assailant Kyaw Zeya, aka Bo Maung, 28, is, like his victim Ni Ni Khin, also a native of Thanlyin Township, where he lived on a bus station compound.

According to police records, he was arrested by First Lieutenant Mya Soe (Thanlyin Police Station), Second Lieutenant Maung Maung Than and First Lieutenant Myint Zaw (of the Sourthern District Police Force) and their colleagues near Aung San Market bus stop.

He was being held in Thanlyin Police Station and he had been charged with robbery with violence, a policeman said.

Police showed Ni Ni Khin, 75, the widow of the deceased writer and university psychology lecturer, photos of former criminals to potentially trace the suspect, according to Wai, the daughter-in-law of Ni Ni Khin.

A man aged around 30 disguised as a phone linesman had arrived at around 11 a.m. at her home on October 7 in Thanlyin Township, Rangoon Division, and asked the widow who lives alone for a glass of water, one of her relatives told Mizzima, quoting the widow. He then assaulted her with a brick.

Although Ni Ni Khin resisted the robber, he took 50,000 kyat (about US$50) and fled, The Voice weekly journal said, quoting the widow.

She required more than 30 stitches for a wound to the top of her head and 12 to her left eyebrow, the journal reported. She also sustained injuries to her neck, shoulders and arms and was still undergoing treatment in the Brain and Spine Department of Rangoon General Hospital.

Tekkatho Phone Naing received a master of arts degree in psychology from Columbia University in New York. He returned to Burma to take up the post of rector at the University of Education but was forced to resign after he spoke out against the junta during the 1988 pro-democracy uprisings. He also wrote more than 50 novels. He died at the age of 72 on May 10, 2001.

His feted works are A Rainy Night, I’ll Call You Friend, Don’t Stop Your Mournful Music, Dry Desert and The Lady from Miles Away. He won the Burma National Literature Award for the novel, Faint Mist and Pouring Rain. He also wrote songs.