4 hurt in shelling of Maguindanao del Norte polling site

COTABATO CITY — Four were hurt, among them a soldier, when gunmen pounded with 40 millimeter grenade projectiles the surroundings of a polling site in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte on Monday afternoon, amid election activities.

Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, on Tuesday said that the conduct of elections at the Simuay Junction Elementary School in Simuay, Sultan Kudarat resumed immediately after policemen and soldiers had spread around the barangay to prevent a repeat of the shelling.

Nobleza said that the attack was apparently meant to disrupt the elections in Barangay Simuay, about 16 kilometers northwest of this city.

He said three villagers, Ibrahim Aman Mayon, Muslimin Kapenda, Ibrahim Kamad and a member of the Army unit assigned at the public school to help secure polling activities sustained superficial shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies and are now all out of danger.