Central Visayas police to probe death of student during concert

CEBU CITY—The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) is looking into the death of a 19-year-old student while attending a concert on Saturday, one of the pre-parties in the city in celebration of Sinulog Festival.

Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, PRO-7 director, said they would look into reports that the girl, a first-year college student, may have died due to an overdose of a party drug called ecstasy.

He said he has talked with the parents who promised to cooperate in the investigation after they had attended to their daughter.

“They had to prepare the wake first before they would report to the police and the father promised that they would cooperate by filing a blotter report on the incident,” said Sinas.

He admitted that they could not start their formal report unless a complaint had been filed in their office.

The death of the girl was not officially recorded with the police. Police officials learned about it only when reports about her death and its alleged cause went viral on social media.

Sinas told a news conference that the initial report they received was that the girl was a college student who died after attending a concert on the eve of Sinulog Festival on Sunday.

But Sinas added that there were informants who told him that the victim died due to illegal drugs.

“Report lang ug wala pay (there was no) confirmation, that the person died during the party because of an overdose of ecstasy,” said Sinas.

He said this should be where the family must come in so the police could investigate and determine what happened to the victim.

He urged the family to allow the police access to the body so they could conduct an autopsy to find out the cause of the student’s death. /lzb