Geneva: The head of a United Nations investigation into violence in Myanmar asked the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday for more time to probe allegations of mass killings, torture, sexual violence, the use of landmines and the burning of villages.

‘We will go where the evidence leads us,’ the fact-finding mission’s chairman Marzuki Darusman said, before requesting a six-month extension of the investigation to September 2018.

Myanmar’s ambassador Htin Lynn said Darusman’s investigation was ‘not a helpful course of action’ and said Myanmar was taking proportionate security measures against terrorists, and was making efforts to restore peace.