A TEENAGE tricycle driver died on the spot after being shot down by motorcycle-riding assailants at Aviation Road, Barangay Basak, Lapu-Lapu City at past 1 a.m. yesterday.
Salak Dimao, a resident of Sitio Iba, Barangay Basak, sustained gunshot wounds in the neck and body while he drove his motorcycle.
PO2 Dan Palacio Gacoscosim said witnesses called them minutes after the incident.
They recovered several spent shells from the crime scene.
Dimao’s relatives arrived in the area after being called by tricycle drivers and identified him.
While police asked the relatives to allow them to have Dimao’s remains autopsied, they refused since their Islam faith requires that the remains be entombed immediately before the Fajr or morning prayer.
SPO2 Allan Pantaleon of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office (LLCPO) said he is looking into the possibility that Dimao’s murder is linked to the murder of traffic enforcer Raquel Bensi last Friday evening.
Pantaleon said they already identified the tricycle driver whom Bensi argued with after the driver was apprehended for a traffic violation a couple of days before Bensi’s murder.
He said they suspect that the murders of Bensi and Dimao were the handiwork of hitmen responsible for the attempted murder on Basak barangay chairman Isabelito Darnayla and City Traffic Management System (CTMS) chief Frank Brazil in April and July last year respectively.
Darnayla and Brazil were cracking down on tricycle drivers who parked illegally along Maximo Patalinjug Avenue and apprehending unregistered tricycles that caused traffic congestion in the area.
Senior Supt. Rommel Cabagnot, LLCPO police chief, said he would put more policemen in the area to assist traffic enforces there.