Four including former CPC Member’s son arrested over Digana vehicle robbery
It has been revealed that three Defender jeeps worth over Rs.75 million and a KDH van were stolen by tying up two employees from a car dealership in Kengalla, Teldeniya with the intention of removing the parts, modifying them and selling them, on Wednesday (29) night.
The vehicles belonged to a businessman named Digana Mangala, who shot and killed himself inside his business place in Digana. By yesterday (30), the police had arrested four including a garage owner from Sirimalwatte, Teldeniya and a son of a former Central Provincial Council member involved in this robbery and found all four stolen vehicles.
Two stolen Defenders were found hidden in a garage behind the house of the CPC former member’s son in Pallegama Doragamuwa, Wattegama police division. The police had raided the place day before yesterday (29) at around 8.30 am. Even at that time, parts of the Defenders were being removed and their shapes were being changed. The mastermind of this robbery and his followers had been engaged in doing this. A high-ranking police officer said that he repairs defenders. Even the roof of one of the defenders hidden in the garage behind the former CPC member’s son’s house had been cut and altered.
Investigations have revealed that these two defenders were dragged and taken away using other vehicles. Those two vehicles have also been taken into police custody. Apart from that, another defender was found at Wathupitiwala area of the Nittambuwa police division. It had been loaded on to an emergency vehicle and taken. The police have managed to find this Defender along with the emergency vehicle. It had been taken by a friend of the mastermind of the robbery. It has been revealed that he is also a garage worker. The police said that he is among those arrested.
The KDH van had been found abandoned by the robbers in Aruppola Wagolla Kandy at the time the three defenders were discovered by the police.
The arrested suspects are residents of Wattegama and Teldeniya areas. The police said that four more people are to be arrested. Digana Mangala, the owner of this vehicle yard, committed suicide on November 16 last year.
The police said that after the death of Mangala, his wife and eldest daughter have been taking care of his business. Among the businesses owned by Mangala were lending money and mortgaging vehicles and land. Pawned vehicles and vehicles whose owners could not recover them were found at the vehicle yard in Kengalla. Mangala had also run a business of selling these cars at the yard.
A senior police officer said that after the wife and daughter took over the administration of this business, although they mortgaged the vehicles of known people, they did not mortgage the vehicles or property of unknown people and they were running the business very carefully. The police said that there is a house on the same land where the vehicle yard is located and a young man from Hanguranketha, who had been his driver during Mangala’s lifetime, and a clerk also staying in that house along with the security guard of the yard. On June 28 at around 2 pm, the security guard had gone on leave to visit his home in Matale and the police said that only the driver and the clerk were at the house in the vehicle yard that night.
It is said that the front door of the house is not locked as a habit as the gates on all four sides of this vehicle yard are kept closed with locks. On June 29, around 1 am, a group of people had broken into the house through the unlocked door, tied the hands and feet of the sleeping clerk and the driver, beaten them up, locked the doors and removed the vehicles.
According to the police, two of the three stolen defenders were taken as mortgages and the other defender had been bought. The two defenders were pawned by a businessman from Mawanella while Mangala was alive and the KDH van had been mortgaged for Rs.10 million by a Kovil priest in Chilaw, a senior police officer said. The two defenders and the van were to be sold since the owners had not been able to redeem them.
After the robbery was reported to the police, the robbers were identified within a few hours, and it was possible to arrest them and find the stolen vehicles because the robbers who had tied up the clerk had stolen his mobile phone in addition to the vehicles. When the mobile phone was stolen, its location tracking feature had been activated. The young man had told the police about it. The phone had already been deactivated by the robbers, but a technical operation revealed that it had been deactivated in Doragamuwa in Wattegama.
Accordingly, during a special operation in Doragamuwa, the two defenders were found behind the house of the former CPC member’s son’s house where they were removing parts of the vehicles.