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Myanmar Lutheran Pastor beheaded in Indo-Burma Border
Tonzang (Myanmar), SVM News, July 7, 2007: A Burmese pastor was abducted and beheaded by an unidentified group on July 4 at Tangnuam village near Churachanpur town in Manipur State of northeast India. He was buried in Cikha sub-town of Tonzang Township in Myanmar on July 5.
Pastor Pau Za Khen (62) of the Upper Myanmar Evangelical Lutheran Church was kidnapped in a car at about 5 in the evening on Wednesday by four men from his daughter's home.
The mutilated body was found the next day early in the morning in a paddy field at the outside of the town. The pastor's hands were tied at the back and his head had been separated from the torso and was blind-folded.
The body was taken to the Churachandpur District Hospital in India for post mortem and sent to Khen Maan village of Myanmar by car on Thursday itself for the burial.
He served as a pastor in Khen Maan village in Cikha sub-town of Tonzang Township in Chin state in Myanmar. He was the founder chief of the Khen Maan village, which is about three miles from the Indo-Burma border. Both the Indian Army and Manipuri rebels used to visit this village.
"Visitors and traders from Myanmar to Manipur are shocked on hearing the pastor was brutally murdered", a church member of the Upper Myanmar Evangelical Lutheran Church said to Rev. Paul Ciniraj, the Director of the Salem Voice Ministries and the SVM News Service by telephone.
The pastor used to come and trade in charcoal and wood in Churachandpur in India for his earnings. There are number of visitors and traders coming and going daily from Myanmar (Burma) to Churachandpur of Manipur in India.
"He was killed while he was staying in Churachandpur. There the killers are still at large. The Churachandpur police have so far been unable to identify them," an Indian man told to SVM News Service.
SALEM VOICE MINISTRIES NEWS SERVICE (SVM NEWS)
Center for Persecuted Christians in India and third world:
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