SHAN STATE – A soldier of the White Dove People Revolutionary Force (JPRF) who was arrested at the entrance of Nyaung Shwe City has not been able to be contacted by his family members on December 29, according to the JPRF officials.
He was arrested on December 8 and he is said to have been detained at the interrogation center of the Eastern Command on General Aung San Road, Taunggyi City.
A JPRF information official said, “Earlier before he was arrested, a soldier from our group defected to the junta council. His arrest could have been due to that or he could have been noticed because he was going in and out of cities during the Tazaungdai festival. There is still no contact yet. Our team is doing our best to follow up,” he said.
The person arrested is Ko Joker who is in charge of JPRF and who also managed JPRF’s Facebook page.
Therefore, JPRF has opened a new page for security reasons, and a member of the Ywangan PDF informed that all those who were in contact with Ko Joker should be cautious.
“He has two Facebook pages, and the phone numbers that contacted him and the chat records with him will show up in the interrogation. So, I want to tell people to be careful if they are called on a strange phone number.”
Since the middle of 2023, some of the soldiers in the Defence Forces who are active in the villages of Dhanu and Pindaya Township have been facing shortages of weapons and ammunition and even food became difficult. Moreover, financial weakness, stronger influence of the local Pyu Saw Htee and the difficulty of military operations caused some of them to defect to the junta council.