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PNP's 'quiet' contribution to clearing Marawi: 6 dead, 61 wounded

John Unson - Philstar.com

October 6, 2017 | 1:25am

PNP's 'quiet' contribution to clearing Marawi: 6 dead, 61 wounded

Personnel of the Barira municipal police put up a photo gallery of key members of the Maute terror group along a highway near the border of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao. John Unson

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — The police have lost six officers in gunfights in Marawi City since May 23 that have also left 61 personnel injured as cops contribute to the fight against terrorism in the Lanao del Sur capital.

Reports obtained on Friday from the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao indicated that another officer, PO1 Mohaimin Nato, has also been missing since the hostilities in Marawi City erupted.

Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, director of PRO-ARMM, told The STAR Friday that efforts to locate Nato are still underway.

Some of the 61 PRO-ARMM personnel who were badly wounded in clashes with Maute terrorists in the past four months are still confined in different hospitals.

“We just remained silent on our losses as courtesy to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which is in the forefront of Malacañang’s effort to neutralize all terrorists in Marawi City,” Sindac said when asked to elaborate on their casualties in the Marawi conflict.

The six slain and 61 injured policemen belong to different units of PRO-ARMM.

Most policemen wounded in action were from the Regional Public Safety Battalion of PRO-ARMM, deployed in Marawi City in less than 24 hours after Maute terrorists and Abu Sayyaf gunmen laid siege to strategic areas there on May 23.

The RPSB is an augmentation force that is deployed for internal security operations, especially in the provinces.

Assemblyman Zia Alonto Adiong of the 24-seat Regional Assembly of the ARMM, said police units in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur also helped in the rescue of hundreds of civilians trapped in the crossfire between soldiers and terrorists.

The large mosques in Marawi City where Maute terrorists held hostages and reportedly raped women they held to prevent soldiers from getting close are now secured by police teams.

The chief of the Marawi City police, Superintendent Ebra Moxsir, is himself an Islamic theologian.

Moxsir was designated to the post for him to lead religious activities meant to counter the recruitment activities of the Maute terror group in the city and in nearby towns in Lanao del Sur.

Moxsir has led obligatory prayer rites recently in the mosques in barangays in Marawi City the AFP has cleared from occupation by terrorists.

It was also agents of PRO-ARMM, led by Senior Superintendent Rolando Anduyan, who arrested in Masiu town in Lanao del Sur last June Ominta Farhana Romato-Maute, mother of siblings Omar and Abdullah, founders of the Maute terror group.

READ: Maute matriarch arrested in Lanao del Sur

Moxsir said Anduyan’s group intercepted the Maute family matriarch while leaving Masiu on board a vehicle with the help of vigilant residents opposed to her sons' activities.

Sindac, who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1984 and is to retire from the police service this month, said the PRO-ARMM shall intensify its educational maneuvers intended to generate public awareness on violent religious extremism.

He said Muslim preachers in the ARMM police force will take the lead in pushing the information campaign forward.