Two of the three suspects, Norodin Tinggasan, 20, and Roman Gumanod, 29, were wounded in a firefight with responding policemen and now confined at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center here, guarded and cuffed to their beds.
Police investigators in Parang, some 20 kilometers northeast of this city, said Tinggasan and Gumanod opened fire with caliber .45 automatics at members of a rival clan, but missed their targets, killing two innocent market goers instead.
The fatalities — Abolita Dagalangit and Maruh Borih — who sustained gunshot wounds in different parts of their bodies, died while being rushed to a hospital here.
Three other bystanders were wounded in the shooting frenzy.
Preceding Sunday’s incident in Parang was a brief gunbattle between members of the feuding Macapages and Imam clans early this month near the town’s public market.
Two villagers were killed while two others were wounded when both sides traded shots using military-type assault rifles.
The public market in Parang is only about a kilometer away from Camp S.K. Pendatun, the regional headquarters of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police.