Kidnapped burger joint worker found alive but injured

NORTH COTABATO --- The kidnapped burger joint worker abducted Friday was found alive late Saturday inside a farm sack left along a road in Midsayap town in this province.

Relatives said Sunday the 20-year-old Jake Talusan has been reunited with his family now helping him through his confinement for injuries sustained when gunmen abducted him Friday in Barangay Sadaan, Midsayap.

Lt. Col. Aldrin Gonzalez, spokesman of the Regional Police Office-12, said personnel of the Midsayap municipal police are still trying to identify his abductors.

Gonzalez said probers have not established yet the motive for the abduction of Talusan, who works in a burger joint in the town proper of Midsayap.

Witnesses said Talusan was on a motorcycle from a mosque in Barangay Sadaan, Midsayap last Friday when gunmen flagged him down and forced him into a black, heavily-tinted van parked nearby.

Relatives told reporters via online Messenger on Friday afternoon that Talusan had sent a text message to his parents saying he was taken to Digos City, three hours away via overland travel from Midsayap.  

Investigators said, however, it could be his captors who used his phone to mislead his family on their whereabouts.