Cops kill gang leader in South Cotabato highway shoot out
Local News • 19:39 PM Wed Mar 7, 2018
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By:
Edwin O. Fernandez
Polomolok Police Station Office
POLOMOLOK, South Cotabato –- Police
operatives conducting highway mobile patrol were fired upon Tuesday night by
members of private armed group (PAG), triggering a brief fire fight that left
the gang leader dead.
The 8:40 p.m. clash along the highway in Barangay
Pagalungan here left Benzaid Nilong, 40, leader of a Nilong private armed group
operating here and in nearby towns, dead.
Chief Inspector Aldrin Gonzales, spokesperson of
Police Regional Office (PRO-12), said Nilong, a leader of Nilong PAG, based in
Barangay Bentung Sulit, Polomolok, South Cotabato, was linked to highway robbery
cases and were guns-for-hire, including the murder of Senior Inspector Hernan Gabat,
deputy POlomolok police chief, in October last year.
Senior Supt. Franklin Alvero, South Cotabato police
director, said police operatives have received intelligence information about
plot of a private armed group to conduct high robbery along portions of Koronadal-Gen.
Santos City highway, particularly in Barangay Pagalungan.
This prompted the Polomolok police office to conduct
mobile patrol in Brangay Pagalungan as preventive measure, according to Alvero.
Five men on board two separate motorbikes without
licensed plates and without headlights were flagged down by police operatives,
led by Chief Inspector Alex Joe Orcajada, Polomolok town police chief.
As the law enforcers approached the suspects, they
opened fire. The suspects fired at our personnel using M-16 rifle cal. 45
pistol as they sped off, triggering a running gun battle, Gonzales said.
Nilong sustained gunshot wounds on his back and died
on the spot while his companions managed to evade arrest by fleeing on foot, leaving
two motorbikes.
Gonzales said scene of the crime operatives recovered
a cal. 45 pistol, a rifle grenade and empty shells for 9mm pistol and cal. 45
pistol and mobile phones of the suspects.
The M-16 rifle used by Nilong was believed to have been carried by his fleeing
companions.
Police have intensified police patrol operations
here following intelligence reports that relatives of two slain drug
personalities and 23 others earlier nabbed during anti-drug operation on March
2 were out to revenge the death of their two companions.