The incident came less than five days after the Marine-led unit here of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, which had been active in curbing kidnappings in Central Mindanao since 1998, was disbanded.
The slain trader, Al Leung Ilao, had two bullet wounds in the chest.
Citing initial feedback, the Sultan Kudarat police said four gunmen barged into Ilao’s store in downtown Tacurong, snatched him at gunpoint and spirited him away to Lambayong town aboard a getaway vehicle.
The kidnappers opened fire on responding policemen and members of the Army’s 47th Infantry Battalion, triggering a running gunbattle.
One of the kidnappers was wounded and is now in the custody of local authorities who refused to identify him pending further interrogation.
Sensing that advancing soldiers were outmaneuvering them, one of the kidnappers shot Ilao with a handgun, killing him on the spot. The kidnappers then fled toward Barangay Daladap in nearby Isulan, the capital town of Sultan Kudarat.
Barangay Daladap is the gateway to the Daguma mountain range, a densely forested area and known lair of lawless elements.
Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said their commander, Brig. Gen. Roy Kyamko, has dispatched dozens of plainclothes operatives to help the police track down Ilao’s killers.
The killing was the fifth criminal incident in Central Mindanao since PAOCTF’s Mindanao Area 1 unit here was disbanded last week as a result of President Arroyo’s abolition of the controversial task force.
Five robbers shot and seriously wounded trader Rodelina Gañada in Pikit, North Cotabato last Sunday after she refused to hand them her earnings for the day.
The robbers, after divesting the wounded businesswoman of P100,000, fled toward Pagalungan, Maguindanao, aboard motorcycles.
The previous day, a gasoline station, also in the Pikit town proper, was robbed of P51,000 in cash by three pistol-wielding men.
Early this week, a security guard was wounded when he single-handedly fought it out with three men who attempted to rob his employer at a busy area here.
Though wounded, the security guard killed one of the robbers, whom police identified as Hadji Pantar, a resident of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.