MALAY RUNS AMOK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 353, 14 May 1928, Page 14

MALAY RUNS AMOK

HAS TO BE SHOT DOWN A sensation was caused in Moulmein (the capital of Lower Burma) by the news of a man running amok so violently that he ultimately had to be shot dead. The incident occurred at Amherst, which is on the coast, and it was reported that the madman either killed or injured half a dozen people before he was shot dead by Mr. L. Mitchell upon refusing to give himself up. The story is that the man, whose name was Tun Gyaw, and who was a boatman, doubted his wife’s fidelity and began his wild acts by murdering her with a crowbar. He then felled his mother-in-law with a stick and ran out of the house into the street. People locked themselves within their houses, and a man named Tun De went and asked for Mr. Mitchell’s protection, as his family was in danger. Meanwhile the madman encountered a Burmese woman on the road and, attacking her without provocation or motive, severed her head from her body with a heavy Burmese knife. Mr. Mitchell by this time, with his doublebarrelled gun, had gone to the police station, where he was joined by constables. It was said the madman had fled to the jungle, whither Mr. Mitchell and police also proceeded. They surrounded the hut in which Tun Gyaw was hidden and Mr. Mitchell called on him to come out, when no harm would come to him. aud after much talk he appeared with an axe in one hand and a knife in the other. He said he had killed seven people and that he preferred shooting tehn and there to hanging in the Andamans. On Mr. Mitchell promising to endeavour to get him lightly sentenced, he became infuriated and charged down upon the group with the axe. Mr. Mitchell fired at his legs, but hit the man in the stomach, and he died in hospital soon after admission.