Google map of Pagalungan, North Cotabato
COTABATO CITY – Authorities are on the lookout for a male suspect, who shot and injured a father and his five-year-old son in the Maguindanao town of Pagalungan Monday.
In a police report released Tuesday, Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said a still unidentified gunman barged inside the house of Sadak Solaiman, 38, in Barangay Poblacion, Pagalungan, around 3 p.m. and shot him at close range.
Mijares said Solaiman sustained two gunshot wounds in the abdomen, and a stray bullet hit his child who was near him inside the house.
The attacker immediately fled after the incident.
Responding policemen brought the victims to the hospital and immediately set up checkpoints at strategic sections of the town. Recovered from the crime scene were several spent shells from a .45-caliber pistol.
“Police investigators are still trying to determine the identity of the gunman, and if was acting with a cohort during the commission of the crime,” Mijares said.
Initial investigation pointed to personal grudge as the motive behind the incident, police said.
Meanwhile, on the same day, a motorcycle gunman also shot and seriously wounded Francisco Maquilang Lapined, 50, in Pikit, North Cotabato.
Police said Lapined, a resident of Barangay Punol, Pikit, was traversing the provincial road in adjacent Barangay Panicupan on board his motorbike when tailed by the gunman.
The gunman fired at the victim, hitting him at various parts of the body.
Concerned villagers and responding cops rushed the victim to the Cruzado Medical Center in downtown Pikit but was later transferred to a hospital in this city.
The Pikit police, in its report, said they are looking at personal grudge as a possible motive behind the incident. (PNA)
