Power pylon watchman, 2 hurt in grenade attack in North Cotabato

PIKIT, North Cotabato – A watchman of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), his daughter and grandchild, were injured in a grenade attack in a remote village here on Tuesday, the police reported Wednesday.

Chief Insp. Sindatu Karim, Pikit town police chief, said the 7:15 a.m. blast occurred in Barangay Inug-og and injured Toks Dawadi, 50, whose job was to secure one of the NGCP towers in Pikit from sabotage; his daughter Bailanie Usop, 24, a daughter; and her one year-old child.

Karim said the victims were inside their house when two men riding tandem on a motorcycle arrived at 7 a.m. and asked for Dawadi’s whereabouts.

As Dawadi emerged from the house, one of the two men tossed a fragmentation grenade on him.

Karim said the attackers quickly fled toward Barangay Silik here.

The victims were rushed to a hospital for treatment of the wounds they suffered from the grenade explosion.

“We are investigating if the incident was related to Dawadi’s work as an NGCP tower watchman,” Karim said in a radio interview.

Several NGCP steel pylons in Pikit were bombed in 2015, sending several areas in the province into darkness.

The latest attack against an NGCP tower was on January 14 in Barangay Pagangan in Aleosan town, about a kilometer away from here.

Tower 63 was hit by two improvised explosive devices but the steel tower was not toppled, Senior Insp. Jun Napat, Aleosan town police chief, said.

Due to the series of bomb attacks on transmission towers, NGCP has deployed volunteers – such as Dawadi – to secure its structures from lawless elements.  SFM