COTABATO CITY (September 29) — Two shooters killed a businesswoman in Maguindanao del Sur province on Saturday, September 27, who belonged to the powerful and wealthy Ampatuan clan.
On Sunday, September 28, officials from the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region notified reporters that Sharra Jou Ampatuan died on the scene as a result of bullet wounds sustained during the incident.
Ampatuan was investigating the environs of the Fajad Gasoline Station in Barangay Kamasi in Ampatuan town when two individuals armed with pistols approached her and opened fire, according to local executives and officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office on Sunday.
The gasoline station, owned by Ampatuan, was located along a portion of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway in Barangay Kamasi, near wayside police and army detachments.
Reporters were informed by local officials that Ampatuan was well-known in the municipality for her generosity to the underprivileged locals surrounding her business. She had no criminal record, according to relatives, including current municipal authorities in the province’s neighboring towns of Ampatuan and Shariff Aguak.
The two individuals who killed Ampatuan quickly fled on a getaway motorcycle, according to representatives of the Ampatuan Municipal Police Station and traditional Moro community leaders in Barangay Kamasi.
Police Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, the PRO-BAR director, and his provincial officers were asked by Ampatuan clan scions, including Shariff Aguak Mayor Akmad Ampatuan Sr. and their relatives in other Maguindanao del Sur towns, to work with Barangay Kamasi community leaders to resolve the crime.-Paul T. Palacio
