COTABATO CITY – Authorities are hot on the trail of a suspected gun-for-hire group that shot dead two persons and injured another while on board a passenger vehicle that was travelling along Sinsuat Ave. here Monday.
Cotabato City Police Director Senior Supt. Rolly Octavio identified the slain victims as Al-Jeed Unson, 36, and Nasser Alon Taug, 41, both residents of Sultan Kudarat in Maguindanao province.
Injured in the same incident was Joharie Abdullah, 21, a student of Coland System Technology School and a resident of Sitio RS Buan, Barangay Mother Poblacion 1, this city.
“A deeper probe on the incident is still going on,” Octavio told reporters here Tuesday.
Police said the victims were on board a passenger vehicle that was negotiating a busy section of Sinsuat Ave. in front of the Notre Dame Religious of the Virgin Mary School at about 4:30 p.m. when shots rang out, sending people scampering for safety.
Responding policemen rushed the victims to the hospital where Unson, an employee of the Cotabato Regional Medical Center, and Taug were declared dead on arrival.
A police investigator, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said they are still trying to determine whether the killers were on the same vehicle during the time of the incident.
He said initial investigation revealed that the killers casually walked away and mingled with the scampering crowd after shooting the victims.
Unson could have been the main target of the attack and that the others may have been accidentally hit, the investigator said, noting that the victims were sitting beside one another inside the vehicle. (Noel Punzalan/PNA)
