News
Fierce hunt for brazen cop killers
Constables Chandana Sampath and Ajith Weerasuriya were on traffic duty on the Kurunegala-Dambulla road on Monday night, close to the Badagamuwa forest reserve popularly known as Koskele (jak tree jungle).
They took over duties around 10pm and began carrying out routine checks on vehicles using this road which links up important trunk roads from Jaffna and Trincomalee with the rest of the country, including Colombo.
The skeletal remains of Nihala Ranjith
Around midnight, a vehicle driven by a woman was halted. During inquiries it was learned that she was leaving home following a dispute with her husband. Soon after, her husband arrived in a separate vehicle, and the constables were able to talk over the matter with them and convince them to return home.
As the policemen were speaking to the couple they noticed a white van drawing up and stopping on the side of the road. As the couple left in their respective vehicles the van drove up to the police.
One of the constables walked up to the van driver and asked for the vehicle papers and driving licence while the other officer looked into the vehicle. The men seated in the rear seats grabbed the two policemen, who were unarmed, and dragged them into the vehicle.
Some 2km away the gang shot dead one of the police constables while the other constable made a daring escape after a scuffle with the gang.
Chandana Sampath’s bullet-riddled body was found while PC Ajith escaped to a nearby house and appealed for assistance.
Both policemen were stripped and their uniforms had been taken away by the gang.
Constable Ajith, who is recovering from his injuries, told investigators that both he and his colleague had been beaten inside the van before Sampath was pulled out and shot dead. Ajith said the men had tried to shoot him as well, but he had grabbed the T56 weapon held by one of the gang and made his escape,
The gang had then driven off. Ajith grabbed some clothing from a nearby house and called for assistance.
Police are still trying to find the persons responsible for the crime. Ten separate police teams including the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) are investigating.
The incident is considered one of the most seriousincidents in which law enforcement authorities have been challenged.
“We are taking this as a personal challenge to the police force,” police spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana declared.
The incident was another indication of the deterioration of law and order, with criminal gangs directly confrontinglaw enforcement officers appointed to protect the public from harm.
Since June last year there have been 140 incidents where policemen have been assaulted or obstructed in their duties. Seven policemen have been killed while on duty since 2009.
The crime wave is alarming to both public and police.
A recent brutal case involved an owner of the small vehicle hire business, Nihal Ranjith from Pitakotte, who went missing in March.
Ranjith, who had worked in Japan for several years returned to Sri Lanka early last year with a car that he let out on hire.
On March 26 he left home saying he would be on a hire job over the next few days. Unusually, he did not call home the following day. His worried daughter went to the Mirihana police.
On March 28 the daughter received a call demanding a ransom of Rs. 2 million for her father.
A week later she received another call asking her to meet the gang with the money in Panadura. When she went to Panadura she was told to come to Bandaragama, thereafter to Horana. But the caller did not meet her anywhere.
In the next few months no breakthrough was made but last week the investigators found that Ranjith’s phone was being used in the Boralesgamuwa area and arrested the person using the phone.
“This person claimed that Ranjith was murdered on March 26. He said the murder had been carried out by someone else,” Inspector Nimal Karunaratna, OIC of the Special Branch at Mirihana told the Sunday Times.
The main suspect and two of his accomplices have been arrested.
The skeletal remains of Ranjith were found in Ayagama, Ratnapura. He had been murdered after he had refused to pay his captors the Rs.2m ransom they had demanded.
A string of other criminal activities have been reported.
Earlier this week a fish businessman was robbed of about Rs. 500,000 by a gang which blocked his vehicle at Wellawatte. The gang was dressed police uniforms.
In Anuradhapura, last Sunday, an attempt to rob a business was foiled. The gang included an Army deserter.
“The gang had used a toy pistol. When the owner challenged them they tried to escape but were captured by some of the bystanders,” a police officer in Anuradhapura said.
A senior police officer who did not wish to be named told the Sunday Times that a fresh directive has been issued to the Special Task Force to arrest army deserters responsible for crime.
“There has been an increase of cases where Army deserters have been involved,” the officer said.
Investigations have found that most of the weapons used in criminal activities have been manufactured locally. “We find at least two or three such weapons daily,” the officer said.
He said a campaign should be launched to collect unauthorised weapons. “We had a similar programme to collect unauthorised weapons soon after the conflict, and that was successful. It is time that another campaign is launched,” he added.
“The Community Police are a useful unit. They were effectively used during the conflict period to obtain information regarding people who were aiding terrorist activities,” he said.
Meanwhile police have issued a circular making it compulsory for policemen on duty carry the weapons provided to them. The Officer in Charge of the station and the relevant Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) will face disciplinary action if the officers on duty do not carry their weapons.