Suspected extortion gang members mulcting on bus firms Saturday strafed a passenger bus bound for Gen. Santos City, killing its driver and wounding its conductor, Army and police here said.
Manhunt against the suspects was immediately launched despite rains in the mountains of Shariff Aguak where the gunmen fled after strafing a vehicle of the Husky Bus Company in Barangay Labo-Labo, according to Sr. Insp. Marlon Silvestre, Shariff Aguak police chief.
Silvestre said the air condition bus, with body number 1188, was driven by a certain Jun Nicor and was heading to Gen. Santos City from
As it approached an isolated portion of the highway at 2:30 p.m. gun burts were heard and passengers saw the driver slump on the steering wheel.
His conductor, Ronaldo Ampan, was hit in his shoulder.
As the driver lost control of the steering wheel, the bus fell on a ditch.
All the passengers were unharmed, Silvestre said.
Responding police recovered empty shells of M-16 Armalite rifle and slugs inside the bus.
Nicor expired as he was being brought to the Maguindanao provincial hospital in Shariff Aguak town.
No one has claimed responsibility.
Col. Dickson Hermoso, speaking for the military, said soldiers of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade and 45th Infantry Battalion are helping the police in hunting down the gunmen, believed to be members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters or al-Khobar extortion gang who have been preying on bus firms for protection money.
The Husky bus, the lone bus plying the Maguindanao route, had been subjected to harassment by Moro bandits in the past, among them strafing, bomb attack and grenade attacks at its terminal in
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=551194
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