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Gen. Kulatunga killing: Was Inspector involved?

Close on the heels of claims that Colombo’s underworld had connections with the LTTE and undertakes contracts on its behalf, comes the news that a senior police officer who allegedly shot himself may have been linked to the recent assassination of Major General Parami Kulatunga.

Chief Inspector Mudith Nishantha of the Special Operations Unit of the Colombo Fort Police allegedly committed suicide using his own pistol at a guest house in Kurunegala on Thursday. A few days before his death, the inspector had been questioned by police investigators in connection with General Kulatunga’s killing.

“Yes we questioned him,” confirmed SSP Sarath Lugoda, Director of the Colombo Crime Division.

“I wanted to collect more information before further questioning him but when we tried to contact him, he avoided us and we sent a message to the OIC of the Colombo Fort Police to get him to come.”However Chief Inspector Nishantha had made an entry that he had been given permission by a senior officer to go home and left his station.

“But no such permission had been granted,” SSP Lugoda said.

Disclosing details of the suicide, Kurunegala Headquarters Inspector Anil Priyantha told The Sunday Times that a person had checked into a guest house on the wewa rawma (bund of the lake) around 7.15 on the night of August 1.

“He had taken dinner and gone to bed. He had been there the following day too. On August 3, at breakfast, he had requested that his bill be brought to the room around 9.30 a.m,” the inspector said.

“When the guest house staff knocked on his door there had been no response. Repeated knocking had also been futile. The staff then called 119, the police emergency in Kurunegala. When the police got into the room they found a person in civilian clothes fallen on the bed with a shot through the head,” HQI Priyantha said adding that the police also found the man’s identity card indicating his rank.

“His service pistol was found by his side,” he said.

According to HQI Priyantha, the inquest revealed that death was due to gunshot injuries and a verdict of suicide was returned.

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