This past Saturday, user Hnin Lei Aung’s plea for people to help find a thief quickly spread on the Myanmar Facebook scene.
In CCTV footage that she obtained and consequently uploaded to the social network, Hnin Lei Aung can be seen paying at the cash register at the Marketplace on Dhammazedi Road. Beside her is a small shopping bag that she’d brought with her. When she’s done paying and leaves with her shopping, you can see that she’s forgotten the bag at the register.
The cashier doesn’t notice, but the young woman standing in line behind Hnin Lei Aung does. Instead of calling after Hnin Lei Aung about her bag, the woman repeatedly looks around while she’s paying for her own shopping, and upon leaving, casually walks away with Hnin Lei Aung’s bag.
In her post, Hnin Lei Aung writes that the bag contained important documents and MMK800,000, the latter of which the young woman probably saw when she glanced inside.
When she leaves with the bag, the young woman is so obviously jittery that she even gets on the wrong escalator, presumably too occupied with making a quick getaway to pay attention to where she’s going.
Hnin Lei Aung tried contacting Marketplace authorities and the police, but both said that there wasn’t really any way they could find the young woman. As a result, she turned to Facebook with CCTV footage in hand.
Sure enough, someone was able to identify the woman and gave Hnin Lei Aung her address and Facebook account.
Yesterday, Hnin Lei Aung uploaded a new post informing the Facebook-verse that the culprit had been found and that she was able to retrieve all of the money and documents.
Although the original post has now been taken down, users are still offering their thoughts on the situation.
In fact, what’s great about this incident is that the hundreds of thousands of users who have shared and weighed in on it have primarily divided themselves into two groups: the victim blamers, and the decent people.
Although several users shared Hnin Lei Aung’s post in the hopes of spreading the news and obtaining justice, there were also many who blamed her for forgetting the bag in the first place. It’s funny how on the internet, people suddenly become model citizens who have never made a mistake in their lives, including never forgetting an important item in a public place.
Referring to the fact that Hnin Lei Aung had posted close-ups of the culprit’s face from the CCTV footage, one person commented, “You ruined a person’s life over K800,000. Great job.”
The victim blaming must’ve gotten to Hnin Lei Aung a bit because in her second post, she thanked everyone who helped her locate the culprit and apologized for any arguments or distress that her carelessness might have caused.
Look, should she have checked to make sure she didn’t leave behind such an important bag? Yes. Was it fair game for the young woman to just abscond with her bag? Absolutely not. As many commenters pointed out, she should’ve done the right thing and called after Hnin Lei Aung and returned the bag.
In defending Hnin Lei Aung, one user wrote, “The kind of lowlife who shouldn’t be allowed in Myanmar can be found in the comments section of the viral Facebook Marketplace theft post.”
We personally wouldn’t go so far as to call them ‘lowlife’, but what’s that saying about casting the first stone?
