The attack was the latest this week aimed at putting pressure on troops loyal to the junta.
Resistance fighters in Chin State say they seized and burned down a police outpost in Surkhua, a town some 80km south of the capital Hakha, on Saturday morning.
The Chinland Defence Force (CDF), a group formed to protect civilians attacked by the military, said it took control of the outpost without a fight.
There were four soldiers and 11 policemen stationed at the outpost when the CDF arrived, but none of them resisted, a spokesperson for the group told Myanmar Now.
“When we got there, they all fled. We didn’t have to fire a shot. The outposts here don’t have a lot of manpower, and they already knew about us,” said the spokesperson, who asked not to be named.
The CDF, whose members are mostly ethnic Chin people from nine townships in Chin State as well as areas outside the state, was formed in April amid crackdowns on anti-coup protesters.
The group said it seized the outpost because the majority of policemen and soldiers there did not join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule, despite demands from local residents for them to defect.
According to the spokesperson, only two policemen at the outpost had joined the CDM, while the 15 who were still there until Saturday had remained loyal to the junta.
After seizing some ammunition left behind by the fleeing regime forces, the CDF burned down the outpost to prevent them from returning and as a “warning” to the regime.
“This is a warning that we can seize any of their outposts. If they don’t agree with our demands, we will take further action,” said the spokesperson.
The group claimed earlier this week that it had killed at least nine soldiers during three consecutive days of attacks aimed at forcing the regime to release 60 civilians in custody for protesting against the February 1 coup.
Late last month the CDF said it killed about 30 Myanmar military soldiers during four days of fighting in Mindat.
source myanmar-now