Policemen seized P1.7 million worth of shabu from a peddler killed in a shootout during an entrapment operation in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, on Saturday, October 11.
Local executives and senior members of the multi-sector Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Peace and Order Council said on Sunday, October 12, that 25-year-old Saidamin Saban Esmail died immediately from bullet wounds sustained in the gunfight.
They told reporters that anti-narcotics operatives from the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, were to frisk and detain Esmail and his two companions after selling to them 250 grams of shabu, costing P1.7 million, near the campus of a state university in the center of the municipality, but they pulled out pistols and opened fire, sparking an encounter.
More than 10 large-scale shabu dealers had been arrested in separate entrapment operations since June in different barangays in Datu Odin Sinsuat, which is close to Cotabato City, the seat of the regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Esmail’s companions, initially identified only as Mursid and Kadir, scampered away after policemen felled him with pistol shots in the clash that they provoked. They are now both the subject of an extensive manhunt by personnel of the municipal police and barangay officials.
Brig. Gen. Jayson De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Sunday that the entrapment operation laid by Madin and his subordinates, which resulted in the seizure of P1.7 million worth of shabu from Esmail, was supported by the mayor of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Abdulmain Abas, and Vice Mayor Bobsteel Sinsuat.
De Guzman said the 250 grams of shabu confiscated during the operation that went awry shall be subjected to procedural examination and documentation by experts in a police forensic unit in Cotabato City, less than 40 kilometers away from the town center of Datu Odin Sinsuat.