KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun confirmed that his men will investigate a report suggesting that a local teenager was purportedly fighting alongside his father as a militant in the southern Philippines.

News portal Free Malaysia Today had reported hostages claiming the boy, aged about 13-years-old, fighting alongside his father against security forces in Marawi. If true, it would be the first report of a Malaysian child involved in terror activities abroad.

“We haven’t heard of this before. Nobody told us about this, but we will investigate your report,” Mohamad Fuzi was quoted as saying in response to the news report.

Malaysia’s top policeman believes the boy’s father, also a Malaysian, entered Sabah last year, but escaped before the police could get to him.

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“We believe he came back to visit his family. If the report about his son fighting in Marawi is true, it’s possible he’d come back to Sabah to fetch the boy,” Mohamad Fuzi was quoted as saying.

The news portal had previously cited college Mathematics and History teacher Lordvin Acopio who was taken hostage by militants in the Philippines as saying that he had limited contact with the boy whom he described as shy, spoke some Tagalog, little to no English and was armed with a gun.

News reports have said that more than a thousand people were killed in fights between the militants — the Abu Sayyaf and Maute groups — and government forces.   

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had last week declared Marawi to be free of militants.