Missing student found dead in Maguindanao del Norte river

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A student reportedly abducted somewhere in this city and found dead in a shallow river in Barangay Matengen in nearby Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte, on Tuesday, August 11, had earlier complained about being frequently bullied by schoolmates whose identities he had reported to school officials and his relatives.

The 21-year-old Abubakar Lauban Hasim, a third-year business administration student at Cotabato State University, was first reported missing by friends and classmates in Cotabato City on Monday, August 10, and was subsequently found dead on Tuesday along a riverbank in Barangay Matengen, about 15 kilometers away.

Friends and classmates of Hasim told reporters that he was apprehensive about his safety after telling his friends, classmates and teachers about being bullied by unruly men, whose names he also revealed to them.

Police probers and barangay officials in Matengen said Hasim had two bullet wounds on his body.

They said they were certain that he was abducted and killed somewhere in Cotabato City and that his killers brought and dumped his body at a shallow spot in a river in Barangay Matengen.

Hasim was from a Moro family in Barangay Tukanalipao in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao del Sur.

Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson for the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said investigators and intelligence operatives from different units of the Cotabato City Police Office and the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, along with local executives in the municipality, are cooperating to bring closure to the apparently premeditated murder of Hasim.