While committing theft is a bad enough offense in general, one man decided to rack up several lifetimes’ worth of bad karma by attempting to steal stones from a pagoda located within a larger pagoda compound.
As relayed on their Facebook page, around 2:30 am yesterday morning, Yangon police in North Dagon received a call from a group of monks who were residing in a monastery in the Wut Kyway Taw Pyay Pagoda compound. They had spotted a man climbing the A Myat Taw Pyay pagoda — which was also housed within the compound — and attempting to steal the stones off the sein buu taw at the very top of the spire.
It’s unclear whether the A Myat Taw Pyay pagoda’s spire actually contained diamonds. While the sein buu — literally translated, ‘diamond bud’ — of a smaller pagoda is usually made up of stones such as topaz, larger pagodas have real diamonds at the top of their spires. The spire of Shwedagon Pagoda, for instance, is tipped with a 76-carat diamond.
With the help of the monks, North Dagon police were able to arrest and identify the culprit as 43-year-old Kyaw Moe Htike. He is currently being prosecuted under three charges, including Section 379 for theft, and Sections 295 for defiling a place of worship.
Oh, and here’s the kicker — the police and monks also found out that the latter had actually provided lodging for Kyaw Moe Htike at that same monastery just two months prior.
That’s gratitude for ya, huh?
