Just outside the town centre people stop to look at a blackened patch of ground. This is where at least 20 Muslim boys were taken, from a madrassa, and hacked to death, their bodies soaked in petrol and set alight. Fragments of charred bones still lie in the ashes, beside discarded shoes.
On the surface Meiktila seems calm and orderly. Soldiers, who are supposed to be less visible in the new Burma, are back on the streets. A night-time curfew is being enforced.
But the events in March have shaken Meiktila's member of parliament.
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When someone was killed, they cheered”
Win Htein
MP, National League for Democracy
Win Htein is a man of proven courage, who spent 20 years in appalling conditions in prison because of his loyalty to Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. The former army captain has seen plenty of violence, but he still shakes his head in disbelief at what he witnessed last month.
"I saw eight boys killed in front of me. I tried to stop the crowd, I told them to go home. But they threatened me, and the police pulled me away.
"The police did not do anything - I don't know why. Perhaps because they lack experience, perhaps because they did not know what orders to give.
"On the bank thousands of people were cheering. When someone was killed, they cheered. And they were shouting 'they killed our monk yesterday, we must kill them'. There were women, monks, young people. I feel disgusted - and ashamed.