News
Rehearsal at Wattala for robbery at Enderamulla
Police have launched a search for two suspects involved in an attempted robbery and a robbery at two supermarkets in the Wattala area on New Year’s Day.
Police said the two men first tried to rob a Wattala supermarket on January 1 night and then they proceeded in their motorcycle to rob another supermarket at Enderamulla, a few kilometres away.
Wattala Police Chief Inspector Lalith Celogama told the Sunday Times it appeared that the Wattala episode was just a rehearsal before they staged the robbery at Enderamulla.
CCTV footage showed that at the Wattala Food City supermarket on the main Negombo Road, the men had walked in, claimed they were armed and then tried to take money from the cash register. The two female cashiers who were seen to be ordered to put the money into the robbers’ bag are seen in the video footage closing the cash registers and running away, alerting the customers.
According to the footage, after the failed attempt the two men fled the scene with some customers and supermarket employees running after them.
The inspector said the two cashier girls were wearing gold chains and the cash registers had around Rs. 3,500.
“This is a bizarre incident, normally when armed groups carry out a heist they either rob to their hearts content or cause bodily harm but these two robbers had not stolen anything and fled after intimidating the girls,” he said.
The inspector said that surprisingly the supermarket management did not alert the police, because they thought it was not necessary as nothing was stolen.
“We have some suspicion on this incident as the victims were reluctant to inform the incident. However it is still too early to say whether this incident was orchestrated to intimidate the girls, or some sort of a prank or the two robbers were practising a mock run for a bigger heist,” he said.
After the Wattala incident, the two men staged a rerun at the Enderamulla supermarket and robbed Rs 14,170 by intimidating the cahiers.
The police said that they are carrying out further investigations. Initial investigators revealed that the two suspects had changed the number plates of the motorbike.