News
Police preemptive action is jammed as gun violence soars
View(s):- Questions over poor crime intelligence gathering by law enforcement authorities
- Rivalry among drug gangs a prime reason for alarming rise in shooting incidents
- Widespread availability of firearms a major concern; Public Security Minister questioned in Parliament
By Sandun Jayawardana
On the morning of May 24, Lakshitha Ruwan Kumara, 37, was on his way home with his wife after dropping their children at school. As the trishaw Kumara was driving turned onto Heenatigala Road on the way to their residence in Thalpe, Habaraduwa, two men on a motorbike that had been following them suddenly drew up alongside and opened fire. Kumara lost control of the trishaw, resulting in it toppling onto its side. The gunmen then got off the motorbike, approached the overturned trishaw, and fired at them again, killing Kumara and seriously injuring his wife before fleeing the scene.
Habaraduwa: The scene of the shooting(above), CCTV footage captures suspects fleeing the scene (right) and the suspects' bike in police custody (far right). Pix by Ahangama Sumathipala Deeyagahage
Police said they had identified the assailants who carried out the shooting and investigations were ongoing to arrest them. The suspects remain at large.
Kumara had been charged with three murders. He was an accused in a case being heard at the Galle High Court over the murders of two members of the same family in Habaraduwa and was also an accused in the shooting death of a man in Heenatigala, Pinwatta on October 14, 2021.
Police sources said Kumara, a father of three young children, was the latest victim in a long-running feud between two brothers in the Galle area who have been running rival drug trafficking rings. The previous murders are also suspected to be connected to this rivalry.
There have been about 27 shootings within the first five months of this year, resulting in 19 people being killed and 10 suffering injuries, Police Spokesman Senior Superintendent (SSP) Nihal Thalduwa told the media this week.
In the latest gun violence, two gunmen on a motorbike shot at the new Chairman of the Co-Operative Insurance Corporation in Meegoda on Monday. He had been on his way to assume duties at his new post when the shooting occurred. The victim, Dharshana Samarawickrama, suffered gunshot injuries in the incident and was admitted to the Homagama Hospital.
Police suspect someone had put out a contract to kill the new chairman and are investigating whether it is related to his recent appointment as chairman of the corporation.
Police claim that many of the shootings are related to disputes between underworld gangs over drug trafficking. The widespread nature of shootings continues to raise concerns over the prevalence of illegal firearms in society though it has been 14 years since the end of the war. 
The question of why there seemed to be so many illegal firearms in society was raised in Parliament this week by Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Sanjeewa Edirimanna, who directed the question to Public Security Minister Tiran Alles.
Minister Alles said the majority of the firearms were those that were smuggled into the South in the aftermath of the war. Some firearms were also being smuggled into the country via sea along with shipments of narcotics, he added. He cited one incident where the authorities seized 10 pistols along with a consignment of 192 kilograms of heroin during a raid in Bandaragama.
The Police Special Task Force (STF), for example, has seized 1,163 illegal firearms during the past three years, he revealed. The seized weapons included assault rifles such as T-56 and T-81 as well as pistols and revolvers. “What we can do is to search out these weapons and seize them while intensifying our country-wide operations against drug trafficking and the underworld,” the minister said. Many of the criminal gangs engaged in drug trafficking are concentrated in the Western and Southern provinces, especially along the coastal belt from Ambalangoda to Weligama, said retired Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Priyantha Jayakody.
It was the duty of the police to control this problem but they were failing due to a lack of criminal intelligence, he said.
As of now, many of the actions of the police were taken after a crime was committed and the efforts to prevent such crimes from taking place by painstakingly gathering intelligence of such activities were very lax, he pointed out.
The retired senior officer said more resources should be deployed to gather intelligence on these criminal gangs and their activities. “Better intelligence will also enable law enforcement to track down these illegal weapons that continue to remain in the hands of these gangs,” he added.
(Additional reporting by Sumathipala Deeyagahage – Ahangama)
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