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• REVEALED: MASTERMIND IN FRANCE, INSTRUCTIONS FROM DUBAI, EXECUTION IN SUBURBAN SALON

Little did Club Wasantha know that the man who invited him as chief guest to open his tattoo salon, was part of a Dubai-hatched plot to gun him down in broad daylight in the heart of Athurugiriya town.

Rajapaksa Appuhamilage Surendra Don Wasantha Perera—also known as Club Wasantha—who owned a string of questionable nightclubs in Colombo and at various other locations in the country, was killed on Monday morning, minutes after lighting the symbolic oil lamp to open a tattoo salon on the second floor of a building located down a busy street in Athurugiriya.

Unbeknown to Club Wasantha, even while he was lighting the ceremonial lamp at the auspicious time of 9.48, his assassins were nearing the salon to execute the ingenious plan, masterminded in France with orders issued from Dubai. With Club Wasantha’s last few seconds of life on earth running out fast, two men, boldly totting T56 rifles, who had arrived at the site in a white car seconds earlier, run up the stairs to the second floor. Entering the salon they open their T56 rifles and, in a burst of machine gun fire, they spray Club Wasantha with a hail of bullets.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Club Wasantha was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on admission. A postmortem found three bullets lodged in his head and five more in his chest. The indiscriminate machine gun fire had also left several more wounded. Among the seriously injured were Wasantha’s wife, in whose handbag police found an illegal revolver, and popular Sinhala singer Sujeeva.

Her husband, Nayana Wasala Edirisooriya, whom she had wed two years ago, also died instantly in the attack aimed at Club Wasanthsa. He had been a former monk who had been ordained as Gampaha Mahanama. He had gained a repute as being well versed in the Dhamma and had appeared on TV as a sermonising monk.

THE FINAL FRAME: Video footage shows Club Wasantha tucking into milk rice with wife, seconds before he was shot dead and his wife seriously wounded at the tattoo salon opening

According to a colleague monk who had simultaneously been ordained with the monk, “after the money started to flow in, he began to develop an affair with Sujeeva. I could see him drift away from his duties as a monk. After some time, he renounced his robes and honourably left the Order to marry Sujeeva.” In one of the last sermons he preached on TV, the monk Mahanama exhorts: “Know that your mind is the greatest enemy. If not controlled, your mind can make you a dog. If controlled, it can make you an enlightened being.” Little did his viewers realise, that the erudite monk was warring with his own internal turmoil, and was fast losing the battle to retain his spirituality.

Later, as investigations proceeded into the attack, it transpired the entire event was a staged managed farce, set up as bait to lure Club Wasantha to their home ground to be easily shot dead in cold blood. From the salon opening to the invitation card to give the air of legitimacy to the event, the much-hyped show had all been an elaborate hoax to deceive Club Wasantha into shedding any suspicion he may have courted as to the event being anything other than a genuine salon’s grand opening. It had been the perfect sting op, meticulously planned by the Lankan drug mafia abroad and professionally executed locally.

Tattoo Dulan, the salon owner, had been central to the plot’s success. He had been without a job and had made it known he was eager to start a tattoo salon on his own but lacked the capital to do so. He had told of his need to a friend from down south, who had said in return he knew a friend who might invest in the salon. He was told to expect a call shortly but when no call came, he had called the number given. A man, identifying himself as Loku Patty, had asked him how much he would need to open his salon. He had replied, he would need 10 or 15 lakhs.

Loku Patty had asked him to decide on a site and call back. Later he had given three locations. The Athurugiriya site had been chosen.

Tattoo Dulan confessed to the police that he had received 1.6 million in two instalments through wire transfer. He had paid 6 lakhs for the lease rental and had been paid one million for his efforts. He had been asked if he knew of any celebrities to invite for the opening. He had said he knew singer Sujeeva and could invite her to the opening. He had been specifically asked to invite Club Wasantha as the chief guest but strictly warned not to mention that he—Tattoo Dulan—even knew of Loku Patty connection to the salon opening. When Tatto Dulan asked him why, Loku Patty had said, “You know I’m in the drug business. It will scare off Club Wasantha.”

CLUB WASANTHA: Hedonistic lifestyle

Tattoo Dulan says he has never met or spoken to Club Wasantha but had cultivated a social media friendship through his Facebook and WhatsApp posts. Through such social media contact, he had invited Facebook friend Club Wasantha and his wife as chief guests to his salon opening. The unsuspecting Club Wasantha had taken the bait and had readily accepted, exuberant, no doubt, the invitation card had given him top billing as ‘Lanka’s number one businessman.’

MANIKE: Devoted wife

Though Tattoo Dulan denies he knew the salon was the drug mafia’s chosen ground to mow down Club Wasantha on its opening day, his behaviour at the event seems to suggest otherwise. For starters, he is dressed in a pink T-shirt and pink shorts, clearly setting him apart from the invitees. Secondly, only he escaped the T-56 attack without a single injury. And furthermore, video footage showing the exact moment club kingpin Wasantha is repeatedly shot dead, also clearly shows him taking cover furtively behind a cupboard. Unfortunately, Dulan’s wife who, perhaps, may not have known of the imminent ambush, was seriously wounded in the attack.

And what was the motive? Why should anyone—even Dubai’s drug mafia—go to such extraordinary lengths and expenses to mow down Club Wasantha? The truth is that beneath the facade of being ‘above board,’ Club Wasantha had led a secret, seedy life. Though such people lead a reclusive life, the man was too much of an egotist to keep a low profile. He was the born exhibitionist who couldn’t help flaunting his private family life’s intimate moments on his YouTube channel. Behind the hedonistic life he led, with drinking orgies with his mates, he carefully concealed his close links to drug lords.

The discovery at the gruesome scene of the crime of gold-plated bullet shells marked with the initials KPI led the blood trail to France where ace drug lord Kanjipani Imran is in hiding after receiving political asylum. It seems Western governments have no qualms of protecting wanted drug lords, and giving them safe cover to plan and order mass killings of dozens in their country of origin. KPI is the brand name of Kanjipani Imran, the trademark imprint he, like Elizabet Arden does on her perfumes, stamps on every packet of drugs he sends through his wide drug network, as a sign of top quality. ‘KPI’ may have been a red herring but the police pursued the trail, nevertheless.

ARRESTED: Co-plotter Tattoo Dulan wailing after attack

Convicted drug kingpin Kanjipani, who jumped bail in December 2022 and fled to India, is the successor to major drug lord Makandure Madush who died in police custody in October 2020. Police nabbed him in 2019 while he was hosting a grand party for his son’s birthday. As Sirasa Newsfirst reported on 5th February that year:

‘Underworld Leader and drug Kingpin ‘Makandure Madush’ was arrested with 24 others at a party held at a hotel in Dubai. The police state that among the arrested are five notorious drug peddlers. Police confirmed that two of them are ‘Kanjipani Imran’ and ‘Keselwatte Dinuka’. Among the others is a popular male singer in Lanka and another Lankan actor.’

Police believe Kanjipani Imran had suspected Club Wasantha, who frequented Dubai often, as the one who leaked Madush’s whereabouts to the authorities that led to his sudden arrest at the party. Similar underworld revenge killings had been ordered by Kanjipani in the past, Speculation is also rife that Madush had parked some of his drug money with Club Wasantha. When Kanjipani, as successor, had demanded its return, Club Wasantha had refused to pay up, Ultimately, he paid the price: with his own blood.

KANJIPANI: Suspected mastermind

At the end, Club Wasantha died as he had lived, in a blaze of publicity. Apart from his circle of certain currently influential politicians, some of them wooed with wine, women and song as reported, and certain left-leaning YouTubers who call for radical system change, few will mourn his death. But the Chicago-style manner in which he was executed by two professional hit men in broad daylight, no doubt, deeply shocked the people. The well-planned hit and the easy get away revealed to the nation the frightening extent to which the strangulating tentacles of Dubai drug barons had spread and taken root in the country.

That then is the state of Lanka, made even more rotten at the core by the growing increase in drug usage, by the growing increase in the number of drug merchants peddling their merchandise of deadly narcotics without a toss for the police, by the sheer impudence of wanted Lankan drug lords in Dubai, ordering executions on Lanka’s busy streets to settle old scores with their rivals, helped by the impotence of law enforcing authorities due to corruption, collusion or incompetence, or due to protection given by political powers to drug lords to operate freely without impediments.

Far better than the present ‘Yukthiya’ operation which has rounded up hundreds of small-time drug peddlers and users, is for the police to enlist the services of the Foreign Office; and, in a concerted and articulated effort, coordinate with the highest levels of governments abroad to track down these big-time drug merchants to their secret burrows, and have them deported to Sri Lanka to face justice in court.

SINGER SUJEEVA: Invited by Tattoo Dulan, she was seriously wounded in the attack