ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews/30 August) – The police have filed criminal charges against four suspects who are still at-large tagged as responsible in the passenger bus bombing that injured six people, including a two-year-old boy, in this city two weeks ago.
Chief Insp. Elmer Acuña, Police Station 6 commander, said that the charges of frustrated multiple murder were filed before the city prosecutor’s office on Tuesday.
But Acuña withheld the identities of the four suspects so as not to jeopardize the manhunt operation they have launched to arrest them. Their identities – three males and one female – were established by witnesses through the pictures at the rouge gallery of the Zamboanga City Police Office (ZCPO), he added.
Six people were injured when an improvised bomb ripped through the rear portion of the Rural Transit Management, Inc. (RTMI) passenger bus with body number 9224 while it was approaching the terminal in Barangay Guiwan around 9:30 p.m. of August 16.
The suspects were among those who boarded the bus at the highway in Barangay Culianan, this city, police said.
They disembarked when the bus made a stop and unloaded passengers in front of a shopping mall in Barangay Putik, which is several hundred meters away from the bus terminal.
Meanwhile, the police are still investigating to identify the suspects behind the second bomb explosion that took place barely an hour after the bus bombing.
The second explosion took place around 10:45 p.m. near a mosque at Suterville, Barangay Campo Islam, this city.
No one was injured at the second incident, wherein the improvised bomb was placed on an electric post outside the mosque. (MindaNews)
