Motorcycle thief killed, 2 arrested in Sultan Kudarat police operation

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

Brig. Gen. Percival Augustus Placer, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said on Monday 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, President Quirino, balked and motored away when he ran towards 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 wounded.

President Quirino MPS, in a report to PRO-12, said 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, said Basco and Aliman belong to a group responsible for more than 20 motorcycle heists in their barangays and nearby Lambayong and Tacurong City, also in Sultan Kudarat 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 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.