The junta has been using bulldozers to destroy plots of land in Pyin Oo Lwin Township in Mandalay Region since 22 July.

It is claimed that the land, located near to the Pyin Oo Lwin Center, east of the Pyin Oo Lwin-Lashio Road, had been illegally sold.

“Local people say brokers put up fencing and illegally sold the land as plots. So, the Military Council used bulldozers to demolish the boundary walls, but the houses have not yet been demolished Furthermore, I've heard that the bulldozed land will be reclaimed by the Junta”, said a Pyin Oo Lwin resident.

Pyin Oo Lwin Township Administration has issued multiple eviction notices to people living on the disputed land. It said that the homes on the plots were illegally built without permission, on agricultural land intended for farming.

The land brokers who sold the land, and who have now vanished, bought the agricultural land, divided it up into lots and put in residential amenities such as concrete roads, drains and lamposts before illegally selling the plots off as residential land.

A real estate agent from Mandalay explained: “The broker purchases an acre of agricultural land and sells it as a non-agricultural land plot. People with no knowledge of farmland then purchase it. The people who sold the land plot then run away. The brokers collaborate with officials from the Settlement and Land Records Department, the Mandalay City Development Committee, and the General Administration office.”

More than 200 acres of agricultural land, forest land, and vacant land are reportedly being sold illegally in Pyin Oo Lwin Township.