Indian trader abducted in Maguindanao escapes

COTABATO CITY – An Indian national abducted in Maguindanao last month succeeded in outsmarting his keepers and escaped from captivity Friday in a remote town in Lanao del Sur, the police reported Monday.

Senior Supt. Madid Paicao, Lanao del Sur police director, said businessman Krishan Sing Arora had noticed that his abductors, numbering about 15, tend to sleep together at night.

They didn’t even bother to see if he was asleep too, Paicao said.

“He noticed that for several nights, they all slept together while clutching their firearms. They must have been overconfident that the victim will not escape,” he said.

On Friday evening, Paicao said Arora pretended he was asleep too when his captors checked on him.

“When the suspects went to sleep, he slowly made his way out of the area he was being kept in,” he said.

Paicao said when Arora made certain no one had noticed him, he dashed as fast as he could until reaching a coastal village in Lanao del Sur, where fishermen saw him.

Chief Supt. Noel delos Reyes, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said residents of the fishing village of Barangay Parika in Sultan Naga Dimaporo town noticed Arora wandering about their village and asked him where he was bound to.

Delos Reyes said Arora recounted to residents he was a kidnap victim and asked them where the nearest police station was.

He was then brought to the Sultan Naga Dimaporo police office.

Arora was visiting a cash-strapped plywood factory he was helping rehabilitate in Barangay Landasan in Parang, Maguindanao when abducted by still unidentified gunmen wearing military uniform.

The kidnappers had demanded P10-million in ransom in exchange for freeing the victim.

Paicao said the kidnappers actually lost because they spent for Arora’s needs without getting a centavo in return.

Arora was the second Indian national snatched here and in Maguindanao in recent months.

In October, department store-chain owner Mike Khemani was also abducted while visiting a branch of his Sugni Superstore here.

He was freed through the intercession of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.