On 20 December 1938, Bo Aung Kyaw was killed during a mounted police charge by the British Indian Imperial Police during the third Rangoon University student boycott.
Bo Aung Kyaw Day (20 December) commemorates him as the first student leader who died in the independence struggle of Myanmar.
[1][2] In December 1938, striking workers from the Chauk and Yenangyaung oilfields of the Burmah Oil Company marched to Rangoon to meet the British authorities.
The demonstration, which blocked access to the Secretariat, the seat of the colonial government, was broken up by the Indian Imperial Police.
Aung Kyaw was posthumously conferred the title Bo (leader) by the students.