Woman held captive by ex-boyfriend for nearly a month speaks out, accuses police of mishandling her case

A Dagon resident who was kidnapped and assaulted by her ex-boyfriend for nearly a month is speaking out about her side of the story after police have repeatedly failed to take action.

Speaking to press on Tuesday afternoon at her aunt’s house, the 19-year-old culprit told of how her then-boyfriend, also aged 19, kidnapped her and held her captive.

As quoted by Kumudra, the couple had made plans to meet up at a pagoda in the evening of March 25.

“When I arrived, he was standing beside a taxi. When I told him ‘let’s go pray at the pagoda’, he said that there was no reason to go pray and pushed me into the car. I asked him ‘Where are you taking me? Let me go immediately,’ and he slapped me in the face,” she recalled. He also confiscated her phone.

“He took me to a motel near Thanlyin. There was no one else there. When we got inside the motel room, he tied my hands with rope and gagged me with a piece of cloth. Then he raped me.”

The next morning, the man took her to his house where he lived with his parents, and locked her inside a small shed in the backyard. The shed had a single entryway, and the guy only visited her when he felt like it.

According to the victim, the parents actually knew that she had been brought to their house, and the mother even told her that one day she’d let them get married. It’s unclear whether they played an active role in holding her captive.

“He only fed me one meal a day. Some days I didn’t get to eat anything at all. If I was thirsty, I had to drink the water in the thanaka water bottle. If I needed to use the toilet, I had to go right inside that shed,” the woman recalled.

Nearly a month later, on May 23, the guy was beating her (a regular occurrence) when her phone — which he still had on him — fell out of his pocket. She quickly hid it and contacted her sister to tell her what was happening.

“Before my sister could come get me, I heard him talking on the phone about selling me,” the victim stated.

Alarmed, she called her sister again, but this time the guy overheard her. By the time the girl’s sister and parents arrived, he was again beating her in the shed. Thankfully, they were able to rescue her and left.

Afterwards, they met up with an organization that helps women who have been assaulted, and went to the police. On May 2, the victim opened a case at the South Dagon Police Station, in what she thought would be the first step in getting justice. However, the young woman received minimal help.

“They told us that we needed proof. They opened a case for us, but my sister’s testimonies and what she had to undergo had nothing to do with the charges that they opened the case under,” the victim’s sister told the media. To date, the alleged culprit has yet to be taken in for questioning.

When asked about the allegations, an officer at the South Dagon Police Station who was on the case told Kumudra that the girl’s story was largely fabricated. He stated: “When we investigated the case, we found out that the young man and woman were a couple. On the night of March 25, they went to a friend’s birthday party. It wasn’t just the two of them at the motel; some of their friends were also there. The shed behind the boy’s house is also surrounded by their neighbors. There is furniture inside , and it isn’t completely isolated. They got into an argument and the girl called her family to come and get her. There were no instances of sexual assault either.”

Police also said that the case has been put on hold and that they have yet to arrest the man in question because the latter is currently ill. Once he feels better, the case will resume and he will be taken in for interrogation.

Despite being so ill, the man is also planning on suing the victim’s parents for trespassing when they came to his house and took their daughter.

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