Mindoro kidnap brains now with NPA?
Police are verifying a report that a former Army soldier, who allegedly masterminded the kidnapping of a businessman-dentist in Oriental Mindoro last Oct. 10, has joined the New People’s Army (NPA).
Chief Superintendent Luisito Palmera, police director of Mimaropa (
“We are still verifying that with our assets in the communist movement,” Palmera told The STAR.
Despite the report, Palmera, however, said police units deployed by Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., Oriental Mindoro police director, would continue hunting down Aquino and his cohorts.
“The report might only be a ploy hatched by the group of Aquino to stymie hot pursuit operations we are conducting against them,” he said.
Palmera has distributed artist sketches of Aquino and his seven cohorts in the kidnapping to seaports, bus terminals and other private and government offices in Oriental Mindoro for their speedy arrest.
Once they have verified that Aquino indeed joined the NPA, Palmera said he would coordinate closely with Maj. Gen. Delfin Bangit, commanding general of the Army’s 2nd Division based in Tanay, Rizal, for an assault on his hideout.
“The Army is tasked principally to go after the communist rebels so it is just proper to ask Gen. Bangit’s help in neutralizing Aquino once the report is verified to be true,” he said.
Hora had just parked his car in his garage last Oct. 2 when ski mask-wearing men seized him and his brother-in-law at gunpoint.
The armed men ransacked Hora’s house, taking P500,000 worth of jewelry and other valuables, and then handcuffed and blindfolded him.
Hora was brought to a safehouse in Barangay Balete where his abductors got in touch with his family and demanded P3-million ransom for his release.
However, while waiting for Hora’s wife to arrange the payoff, pursuing lawmen recovered the kidnappers’ getaway vehicle, a Wrangler jeep, a few meters away from the safehouse.
They later found Hora wandering in front of the house. Hora said one of his kidnappers, an elderly man, was living in with Aquino in a house in Barangay Mabatok. – Non Alquitran
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