MSU GenSan faculty urges ‘impartial’ probe on colleague’s murder

GENERAL SANTOS CITY - Faculty members of the Mindanao State University (MSU) campus here have called for “immediate, thorough, and impartial” investigation into Tuesday's killing of their colleague.

Officers and members of the MSU General Santos Faculty Union issued the call as they strongly condemned the “barbaric act” and urged immediate justice for the slay of peace advocate and Islamic Studies professor Mohammad Taha Abdulgapor.      

Prof. Mario Aguja, Faculty Union president, called on law enforcement agencies to conduct a deeper investigation into the murder of Abdulgapor, who was gunned down by motorcycle-riding men past 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

Abdugapor, 52, and his wife Salimah were on their way home aboard their vehicle when waylaid by two unidentified gunmen at a portion of the national highway in Barangay Apopong here.

The professor, who hails from Barangay Koronadal Proper in Polomolok town, South Cotabato, died while undergoing treatment in a private hospital here. His wife sustained a gunshot wound in the arm.

Police earlier said they were investigating a number of angles into the killing, among them a standing land dispute in one of the villages here.

Aguja, a former representative of the Akbayan party-list group, urged city officials to look into the spate of killings in the city and immediately develop programs to ensure the safety and security of residents.

“This gruesome crime involving Prof. (Abdulgapor) should not be made to pass into another unsolved killing in the city,” he was quoted in a statement issued by the union Thursday afternoon.

He claimed that Taha was the 208th victim of riding-in-tandem criminals in the city since Jan. 1, 2017, the 14th this year.

Aguja also asked the Commission on Human Rights to investigate the murder of Abdulgapor and other killings in the city.

Abdulgapor, who was an Ustadz or Islamic scholar, was a faculty member of the Islamic Studies department of MSU General Santos and part of a pool of university professors who teach the fundamentals of peace education. He was a member of the Local Monitoring Team of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and served as a board member of the Bangsamoro Development Authority.

Aguja said the death of Abdulgapor was a huge loss to the university as he had “dedicated almost all his productive life in the task of molding our successor-generations.”

“He (was) recognized for spreading the culture of peace among the peoples, not only in the Soccsksargen but also in other parts of Mindanao,” he added. (PNA)