North Cotabato police denies mishandling drug suspect

KIDAPAWAN CITY – The police director of North Cotabato todaydenied allegations police authoritiestortured and shot a suspected drug pusher they arrested over the weekend in Magpet town in North Cotabato. Senior Superintendent Alex Tagum, provincial director of the Cotabato Police Provincial Office (CPPO), said it was not his ‘cup of tea’ to torture a prisoner. Marlon Polino was arrested inside his house in Poblacion, Magpet where five sachets of white crystalline powder believed to be ‘shabu’were confiscated from him during the buy-bust raid. Tagum said that while Polino, already chained, was onboard a police car, he jumped off a cliff and ran as fast as he could. Allegedly, while Polino was on the run, he lost his balance and stumbled upon a bamboo tree.He was said to have been hit by a big bamboo twig, according to Tagum. The wounds he sustained did not come from a bullet fired by our policemen.It came from a bamboo twig that hit him while he was running on the woods,” said Tagum. Polino’s relatives have accused the police of mishandling and planting evidences on the suspect, an accusation that Tagum denied vehemently. The suspect, police records showed, is included in the top 10 most wanted drug suppliers operating in Magpet town. Tagum has challenged Polino’s relatives that if they have enough evidences, they could file the necessary complaints against Magpet PNP to the Police Law Enforcement Board and to the Commission on Human Rights. Polino’s arrest came after Tagum and his men continued its, ‘one time, big time operations’ against suspected big-time drug suppliers in at least 11 towns in North Cotabato.