News from India Newspaper (r)

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  "Burma police now keeping a vigil on a 'haunted house'"

Rangoon, June 25: Burma's military government has ample practice of
keeping the political Opposition in check, bit its security forces
recently have been forced to confront a more elusive targetrumours of a
ghost.
 Rumours have spread in the Burmese capital since last Friday that a
ghost has been terrorising an apartment near a busy road junction,
reportedly smashing glasses, cups and light bulbs.
 Every day, hundreds of curious observers have been assembling in front
of the so-called haunted house at Myeinigone Ward in Sanchaung township,
about 4km from downtown Rangoon. On Saturday, about 1,000 people
gathered there.
 The area is also swarming with security officials in large numbers,
which are usually reserved for keeping a close eye on the country's
pro-democracy activists, whose activities are tightly controlled.
 In a coincidence that has fuelled rumours about the apparition, the
intersection near the house was the scene of violence 10 years ago this
month during massive anti-government protests.
 Anti-government demonstrations by students in June 1988 were brutally
crushed by the riot police, with a curfew declared and schools and
universities shut down.
 The crowds outside the house say only that they hope to get a glimpse
of the poltergeista stone-throwing ghostwhich has reportedly been
wrecking the belongings inside. The apartment's owner recently moved to
another home downtown.
 Many of the spectators believed in the existence of ghost, some area
just curious, a few sceptical, yet people in large numbers from as far
away as Hlaingtharyar, a poor neighbourhood 15km northwest of Rangoon,
have come to see the "haunted apartment", travelling by car, bus,
rickshaw, bicycle and on foot.
 "I will not go away until I see the ghost," a 50-year old woman said on
Sunday to a policeman who told her to move along".
 "I came all the way from Hlaingtharyar just to see the ghost and I am
not moving till I get to see it," she added.  (AP)

"THE ASIAN AGE"
Date June 26, 1998.