By Edwin Fernandez
SHARIFF AGUAK, Maguindanao del Sur – Police authorities in Maguindanao del Sur are pursuing an armed group that allegedly decapitated a tribal leader in a remote village in Datu Hoffer Ampatuan town on Tuesday afternoon.
In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Col. Sultan Salman Sapal, Maguindanao del Sur provincial police director, said he has ordered the Datu Hoffer Ampatuan municipal police station to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
“The indigenous peoples’ (IP) tribal leader, Nel Lupos, was allegedly beheaded by still unidentified armed men,” Sapal said.
Lupos, a former village councilor of Barangay Mantao, Datu Hoffer Ampatuan, and currently residing in Barangay Limpongo of the same town, was found dead beside a dirt road at about 6 p.m.
Tribal chieftain Leticio Datuwata of the IP political structure Timuay Justice and Governance, said the 60-year-old Lupos belonged to the Teduray-Lambangian community in Maguindanao del Sur.
Datuwata said Lupos was resting in his nipa hut in his farmland when an undetermined number of armed men arrived. They forcibly entered the house of Lupos, dragged him outside, and killed him for still unknown reasons.
“He was alone in his nipa hut when attacked,” Datuwata said in the vernacular.
Datuwata said Lupos has moved to nearby Mantaw village after his fellow tribal leader, Baywan Angan was shot dead in December last year.
The tribal chieftain believed Lupos was killed for refusing to yield to the gunmen’s demand for him to leave his farm, as they were claiming ownership of it. (PNA)
