2 killed, 1 hurt in Cotabato attacks

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two men were killed in separate shooting incidents while another was slightly wounded in a grenade blast in the city Friday night, police said.

The grenade explosion that rocked one side of the Happy Homes Subdivision here left Noli Bustillo injured and caused panic among villagers.

Bustillo, who sustained superficial shrapnel wounds in the lower limbs, was immediately released from a hospital after receiving first aid.

The victim was standing along a street in the subdivision when one of two men riding a motorcycle together hurled a Mark II fragmentation grenade at the gate of one of the houses nearby and fled.

The incident was preceded by the fatal shooting in Barangay Bagua here of a still unidentified man by a lone suspect armed with a pistol.

Another gunman also killed an ethnic Maguindanaon villager, Muktar Lindugan, in a shooting frenzy at about the same time in Purok Espino west of Cotabato City.

Investigators are still clueless on the identities of the bombers that set off a grenade at the Happy Homes Subdivision and the suspects in the two separate gun attacks.