Police informer, wanted person killed in North Cotabato shootout

PIKIT, North Cotabato (Updated 5:10 p.m.) — An alleged shabu trafficker and a confidential police informer were killed in a shootout in Barangay Gli-Gli here on Saturday morning.

Policemen and agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-12 were to arrest Musim Dalanda, also known as Musim Mama, long wanted for heinous offenses and large-scale distribution of shabu, but the operation turned haywire when he and his companions resisted, sparking a gunfight.

Brig. Gen. Alexander Tagum, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said an hour after Saturday’s incident that the suspect and his accomplices fired first at the policemen approaching his house in a secluded area in Barangay Gli-Gli.

The raiding team was armed with warrants for the arrest of Dalanda from a local court.

A police informer, whose identity was withheld pending notification of relatives, perished in the encounter.

The slain civilian confidential agent, who sustained fatal gunshot wounds, was declared dead on arrival by physicians at a hospital in the town proper of Pikit.

There are interior areas in Pikit that are known hotbeds of criminal activities by armed men identified with the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Dawlah Islamiya.

Both groups are operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.