5 dead in Maguindanao gun incidents in 6 hours

COTABATO CITY — The police and military have tightened security in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte after five residents, one of them a minor, got killed in separate shooting incidents in only six hours on Sunday, October 27.

Citing a report from the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Monday that the first to perish among the five fatalities is a 16-year-old, who was shot dead by Alrashid Untong, a security guard. 

Witnesses have confirmed to local police probers that Untong shot the minor with a pistol amid their heated altercation in one spot in the town center of Datu Odin Sinsuat, killing him on the spot.

Untong had also killed with his pistol a villager, Nasser Halid, for trying to stop him from running away. 

Armed relatives of Halid close to the scene shot Untong dead, according to barangay officials and personnel of the municipal police. 

About five hours later, two more residents of Barangay Poblacion in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Suharto Antong and Solayman Maulana, armed with pistols, both died from bullet wounds sustained in a gunfight also precipitated by a supposedly resolvable misunderstanding.

Antong first shot Maulana, who, despite his gunshot wounds, managed to return fire. They both died in the incident.

Macapaz and the commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, have agreed to jointly support the efforts of the Datu Odin Sinsuat police force to prevent a repeat of such bloody incidents that went viral on social media.