Police officer relieved over missing SAF 44 rifle
• 15:41 PM Fri Oct 14, 2016
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By:
John Unson
Remains of SAF-44 arrive in Manila from Maguindanao. (Philstar)
GENERAL SANTOS CITY --- A senior police official in North Cotabato was booted out Wednesday after agents recovered from his son the assault rifle of one of the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos killed in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last year.Key sources from the Police Regional Office-12 here said Thursday Senior Inspector Sindatu Karim, deputy police chief of Pikit town in the first district of North Cotabato, is now being investigated on how the missing firearm got to the house of his son, Nasser.Regional anti-narcotics operatives, led by Supt. Maximo Sebastian, were to search for methamphetamine hydrochloride at the house of Nasser in Pikit, but found military-type rifles instead, one of which bore the serial numbers of the missing M-16 armalite of one of the 44 SAF operatives killed by Moro rebels in the infamous January 25, 2015 Mamasapano incident. Karim confirmed on Thursday morning to Cotabato City’s most popular radio outfit, the Catholic station dxMS, that he was indeed ousted as Pikit’s deputy police chief as a consequence of the recovery of the firearm from him son. I cannot speak more about it. There is a proper forum where to talk about that. I can only confirm that I was relieved from my post, Karim said.PRO-12 officials said Karim is now restrained at their office here, awaiting administrative charges.Local officials in Pikit, home to mixed Muslim and Christian settlers, said Karim and his son should be both held criminally liable for keeping the missing firearm listed in the arsenal registry of SAF.The 44 SAF operatives who perished in the Mamasapano incident were killed in a spate of encounters on January 25, 2015 with guerillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.They were retreating from Barangay Pidsandawan in Mamasapano after they killed in a dawn raid there wanted Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, most known as Marwan, when they were attacked from different directions by MILF and BIFF gunmen.