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Rs. 850,000 paid to informant over a year before Ankumbura youth was gunned down
View(s):A Sri Lankan working in a West Asian country paid as much as Rs. 850,000 to an informant over a year while he planned the killing of a 23-year-old youth who was gunned down in broad daylight in Ankumbura last Sunday, detectives claimed yesterday.
CCTV footage that went viral on the social media show the victim M.R.M. Muhin and a friend were standing by the side of the main road at Bebilagolla in Ankumbura. A slow moving red car was seen passing them, only to come in reverse for a gunman in the rear seat to put the shutter down and fired at them.
The CCTV footage taken from a roadside camera shows the two youths falling and the car speeding off. Police said the killer had used a T-56 automatic rifle.
Shocked residents rushed them to hospital, but Mr. Muhin was pronounced dead on admission.
Acting fast, Ankumbura police and nearly 15 police stations in the surrounding areas set up road blocks, preventing the killers from escaping. A few hours later, police found the car abandoned at Pujapitiya. On Monday, on a tipoff, a man from Ranala, Kaduwela was arrested. Residents had seen him getting off the car.
Detectives said information provided by the suspect led to the arrest of the alleged gunman and another accomplice. They were arrested at a hideout in Mahaiyawa, Kandy. Police are now on the look out for the driver of the car which was hired from a rent-a-car company in Katunayake.
Ankumubura Police Chief Inspector Palitha Jayaratna said, “This was a contract killing probably linked a love affair Mr. Muhin had with a girl.”
The Chief Inspector said the contract was given by a relative of the girl a year ago. He was not happy with the girl’s affair with Mr. Muhin.
It all started with the man who was working in the Middle East seeking information about Mr. Muhin through a Facebook post. Responding to the post, the suspect from Kaduwela had undertaken the task to locate Mr. Muhin, CI Jayaratne said.
The informant had been paid as much as Rs 850,000 over a year for providing information about Mr. Muhin’s whereabouts and his daily routines. The Chief Inspector said the man had then looked for an assassin to kill the youth and got in touch with the army deserter, to whom he had paid a Rs. 50,000 advance.
“A day before the killing, the man living overseas told his informant to meet the army deserter and tell him about the movements of the victim. The following day, the informant had travelled in a three-wheeler just ahead of the car to show the victim to the army deserter,” he said.
The informant had told police he did not know he was being used for the killing.