Homagama murder planned by Dubai based criminal
According to the police, the investigation team has uncovered information that the murder which took place on June 21 in Homagama Maha Katuwana area was planned by presenting an ID card that had been picked up and buying a SIM card.
Accordingly, the owner of the ID which had been presented in order to register the SIM card, a 29-year-old resident of Radawana had been taken into police custody and questioned and these facts were revealed.
Police said that he is a conductor of a private bus running on the Kirillawala-Pettah road. On the night of June 21, a 46-year-old man named Maharage Chamila Sanjeewa Perera, a resident of Homagama Maha Katuwaana, was killed opposite his house and the killer had run away.
The murder had taken place around 9.10 pm and before that the victim had thrown a party at home with a group of his friends. At that time, he had received a call on his mobile phone. In order to respond to the call, he had gone out of the house and answered the call while standing near the gate when a group of people in a car had shot at him using a T-56 firearm and fled the scene. The injured person had died subsequent to being admitted to the Homagama Base Hospital.
It is said that during the investigation regarding the number related to the last phone call received by the murder victim, the SIM card had been registered three days before the shooting and information was revealed that the victim had received calls from that number on three occasions.
The person who had registered the SIM card under this particular ID was taken into police custody and during questioning, he had given a statement to the police that his ID card had been misplaced earlier and that he had lodged a complaint with the police as well and that he did not know anything about this incident.
The investigating officers suspect that the murder may have been planned by picking up the misplaced ID card, presenting it, obtaining a SIM card and making phone calls to the deceased.
However, the police say that they will investigate the truth or falseness of the statement given by that person.
According to the police, it has been identified that the murder was planned by Thanuja Sampath alias ‘Handapangoda Handaya’, an organized criminal who has fled to Dubai and is currently in hiding there. It has been revealed during preliminary investigations that he has directed this killing from Dubai and for that, he had given the killing contract to two young men through a close associate residing in this country.