Police looking for clue on Indian trader's abduction

COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- The police  have yet to get a lead  on the identities of the gunmen that snatched 57-year old Indian businessman Mike Khemani in a daring attack at the premises of his department store along Bonifacio Street here Tuesday night.

Senior Supt. Rolen Balquin, director of the Cotabato City police, said they now have a clue on the ownership of the abandoned getaway car the kidnappers used in spiriting Khemani to a riverside area where a motorized banca was waiting.

Investigators have sought the help of experts from the Land Transportation Office to help validate the identity of the owner of the getaway car, a Black Kia Avella bearing license plates MCW 692.

The kidnappers were last reported to have brought Khemani upstream somewhere at the border of Cotabato City and the adjoining Kabuntalan and Northern Kabuntalan towns in the first district of Maguindanao.

Khemani, owner of the Sugni Superstore here, which has branches in Kidapawan City and in Kabacan town in North Cotabato, survived a kidnapping attempt four years ago. Armed men succeeded in abducting him Tuesday night in an attack that left one of his bodyguards dead and another wounded.

Responding policemen and members of the 1st Marine Battalion later found the kidnappers’ getaway car abandoned in a busy area in the city proper.

Major. Gen. Romeo Gapuz, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, has condemned the abduction of Khemani.

The Maguindanao provincial police and units of the 6th ID are now cooperating in gathering information that could lead authorities to the whereabouts now of Khemani and his captors.

Gapuz said Army Special Forces units positioned in marshlands in Maguindanao and North Cotabato are now on alert, ready to help the Cotabato City police rescue Khemani.

Witnesses said five men grabbed Khemani, 57, in front of Sugni Superstore along a busy street near the city’s old market and dragged him at gunpoint to a waiting car.

Two of the kidnappers traded shots with Khemani’s bodyguards, killing Abdul Kaura and wounding his fellow security aide, Mustapha Abdulrahim.

Armed men tried to seize Khemani at the city’s uptown area about four years ago, but failed when police escorts of Judge Bansawan Ibrahim, who were near the scene, engaged them in a gunfight, forcing the armed men  to retreat.

Two of the kidnappers were reportedly wounded in the encounter.