Motorcycle thief killed, 2 arrested in Sultan Kudarat police operation

COTABATO CITY — Policemen shot dead a long wanted motorcycle thief, wounded two others and confiscated from them three firearms in an operation in President Quirino town, Sultan Kudarat on Monday morning.

Brig. Gen. Augustus Placer, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters on Monday afternoon that the three men, Bohari Basco, Oman Aliman and another initially identified only as Arih, first tried to rob at gunpoint an off-duty soldier, Sgt. John Acosta Valdez, of his Suzuki Raider 150 motorcycle in Barangay Suben in President Quirino, but balked and fled when he ran toward his house and asked help from neighbors.

They were cornered by pursuing personnel of the President Quirino Municipal Police Station at the border of Barangays Suben and Mangelen but resisted arrest, pulled out guns and opened fire, sparking a brief shootout that resulted in the death of Arih and left Basco and Aliman both wounded.

The President Quirino MPS, in a report to PRO-12, said that Basco and Aliman turned themselves in when they saw how policemen felled Arih with their assault rifles.

The duo is now locked in a detention facility of the President Quirino MPS.

Local officials, among them members of the President Quirino Sangguniang Bayan, and traditional Moro Maguindanaon datus, told reporters that Basco and Aliman belong to a group responsible for more than 20 motorcycle heists in their barangays and in Sultan Kudarat’s nearby Lambayong town and Tacurong City and in Tantangan, South Cotabato in recent months.

Policemen who traded shots with the slain Arih and his two now detained companions had confiscated from them two pistols and a shotgun.

They also impounded the Kawasaki 125 Bajaj motorcycle of the suspects that local executives said could be one of the more than 20 units that they have stolen in a series of attacks that began in 2023.