Distraught suitor in tutor’s abduction

ZAMBOANGA CITY — A distraught suitor, not the Abu Sayyaf, was behind the abduction of a teacher in Lamitan, Basilan last Friday morning, the police said.

Superintendent Akmadul Pangambayan, Basilan police director, told the regional police command that 29-year-old teacher Harbia Abrera, a resident of Barangay Baas, Lamitan town, was snatched by a certain Hasil Asmawil, a married man who courted her but whom she turned down.

Pangambayan said Abrera was on her way to the Lamitan town proper aboard a habal-habal (a motorcycle) when Asmawil grabbed her and forced her to ride with him on his motorcycle, in the village of Tinambakan.

The police official said village leaders and imams (Muslim religious leaders) are working out the release of Abrera. — Roel Pareño