The Burmese junta is continuing to round up people and interrogate hundreds more arrested during last week's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy marches.
People in central Rangoon's Kamayut district said soldiers had arrested scores of people last night for trying to impede a raid on the Aung Nyay Tharzi monastery a few days earlier and giving protection to fleeing Buddhist monks.
Another 70 young monks rounded up in other raids across the city a week ago were freed overnight from a government technical institute.
One freed monk said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity, birthplace, parents and involvement in the protests, the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years.
Reports of verbal and physical abuse from monks and civilians slowly being freed from a makeshift interrogation centre in north Rangoon suggest junta chief Than Shwe is paying scant regard to the calls for restraint delivered by UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari.
Mr Ban is returning to New York to brief Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the crackdown in a country now under military rule for an unbroken 45 years.
Official media say 10 people were killed, including a Japanese video journalist, although Western governments say the final toll is likely to be far higher.