Hawzah News Agency-Rakhine state government officials are moving to demolish more than 3,000 allegedly illegal buildings, including a dozen mosques and more than 30 other religious buildings, in the Maungdaw District.

During a meeting in the state capital of Sittwe, a committee of village elders was convened to take stock of illegal buildings that need to be razed, Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs Minister Col. Htein Lin.

Those buildings include 12 mosques, 35 religious school buildings and more than 2,500 houses and other structures that were constructed over the years without permission from the authorities, he said.

Tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims in various parts of the country flare up from time to time over the building of religious structures.

The troubled Rakhine state is home to more than 1.1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims whom many Burmese call “Bengalis” because they consider them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s Buddhist majority has long subjected the Rohingya to persecution and attacks and denied them basic rights, including citizenship.

Authorities in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state arrested five local villagers who led a Buddhist mob that burned down a mosque on July 1 in Lebyin Village of Lone Khin Village Tract of Hpakant township.

Several days prior to the incident, township authorities told trustees of the mosque that they would have to demolish the structure because it had not been legally authorized for religious purposes.

Buddhist monk Myaing Kyee Ngu, also known as U Thuzana, has been erecting stupas on the grounds of churches and mosques in eastern Myanmar’s Karen State since April in an act of defiance supposedly aimed at reclaiming ancient Buddhist lands.