Hunt on for kidnappers of Mindanao physician

COTABATO CITY — Government forces, backed by local members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), are still in pursuit of the kidnappers who snatched Tuesday night a physician here.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, who is also MNLF’s secretary-general, said he is convinced that the kidnappers are still holding captive Dr. Rosemary Agustin at the border of this city and Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao, restrained by the presence of soldiers, policemen and volunteers now surrounding them.

Sema lamented, however, that security forces running after the kidnappers, who belong to the notorious Pentagon kidnap for ransom gang, have been slowed down by the thick vegetation on the marshy area where the victim is being held captive.

"And there are some areas there where water is waist-deep and our pursuing operatives have to wade slowly through these bodies of water," Sema said.

The spot where Agustin’s captors are holding out now is not far away from Maguindanao’s Kabuntalan town, a known lair of three big kidnapping syndicates, composed of rogue secessionist rebels, which have just fused ranks with the Pentagon. The Pentagon, led by Tahir Alonto, was tagged as behind the spate of abductions in different parts of Southern Mindanao, including the kidnapping on September of Italian missionary Guissepi Piarantoni in Dimataling, Zamboanga del Sur.

Agustin, part owner of the Cotabato Medical Specialists Hospital here, was about to enter their compound at the Rosary Heights District here Tuesday night when the suspects approached her car, ordered her to disembark at gunpoint and spirited her away using a red Toyota Corolla getaway vehicle with license plate NLX 237.

Two of the kidnappers were killed in a shootout with a group of responding policemen and soldiers led by Sema in Taviran, a secluded district in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat, after a four-hour chase. Another kidnapper, Zainudin Akmad, who was wounded in the leg, escaped, but was cornered later by pursuing soldiers and policemen at a nearby village. Akmad is now confined at the dispensary of the 6th ID in nearby Camp Siongco, guarded by more than a dozen soldiers.

Sema said Akmad has started providing the military and police vital information on the identities of his other cohorts and their links with the Pentagon.

"We will not stop running after them," Sema said.

Relatives here of the victim said they have not received any ransom demand from the kidnappers.

Sources in the Army’s intelligence community said it would be difficult now for the kidnappers to negotiate for ransom since they are still on the run.

Major Gen. Roy Kyamko, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said, more soldiers have been dispatched to rescue Agustin.