The two soldiers were caught with 180,000 methamphetamine pills in their jeep.

The firebrand nationalist monk U Wirathu headlined a rally on Wednesday at which he spoke in dire terms of the “marauding” threat posed by Muslims in western Burma, labelled international aid groups operating there “terrorists,” and thwarted Buddhist authorities’ attempts to rein in his public profile.

“We will take responsibility for security, as well as social and economic issues,” he told ethnic Mro villagers in Kaing Gyi.

Sittwe administration pledges to beef up security across the region.

When neighbours came out, the attackers reportedly shot a gun into the air five times to warn them off, then ran away.

It said 15 persons were kidnapped in total between 9 October 2016 and 3 April 2017, of whom five were rediscovered showing evidence of torture.