According to local media, the official was the victim of a shooting attack south of Zacatecas, in the town of Tinaja.
The Government of Zacatecas confirmed the murder of Bañuelos Márquez and requested the State Attorney General’s Office to investigate the case so that it does not go unpunished.
“We join in the grief that befalls the family of Juan Francisco Bañuelos Márquez, Undersecretary of Livestock of the Zacatecas Country Secretariat, for his death,” reads a message from the state government published on social networks.
“From the state Executive we ask that the State Attorney General’s Office carry out the corresponding investigations so that neither this, nor any case, goes unpunished,” he added.
State authorities received the report of the murder at 2:20 p.m. Ministerial and police personnel went to the site, while local and federal forces deployed an operation to try to find those responsible.
“The investigation cell, in the company of the State Police and the Mexican Army, continue to carry out various procedures and ground and aerial reconnaissance in the area. The progress of the investigation will be announced in the institutional media,” the state agency indicated.
The murder occurred hours after the governor of Zacatecas, the Morenista David Monreal, sent a message to the Zacatecans wishing them “his best wishes so that peace prevails,” on the occasion of Christmas.
Bañuelos Márquez was a candidate for the Municipal Presidency of Valparaíso, in 2021, for Morena. In the last hours, the Morenista Enrique Laredo Toscano was also murdered in Oaxaca.