MYANMAR DENIES REPORT OF NEW MASS GRAVES

YANGON : Myanmar denied on Friday that there were mass graves in village in troubled Rakhine state, where a military crackdown on  insurgents has triggered-

The flight of nearly 690,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The Associated Press has reported it had confirmed the existence of more than five previously unreported mass graves  in the village of Gu Dar Pyin, through interviews with survivors in refugee camps in Bangladesh and through time-stamped cell phone videos.

The Myanmar's government's Information Committee, part of the office of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said in a statement on its  Facebook page that local authorities and security officials formed a ''ground team'' that investigated the report.

''The ground team went to the locations that were mentioned in the AP news story as where the bodies were buried and found out that it is not true,'' the statement said.

''Besides, they met with local elders and villagers and asked whether they were mass killings or not and the villagers told them there were none.''

[Agencies].