Four people have been arrested and a revolver recovered after the Criminal Investigation Department broke up an alleged contract shooting in Colombo before it could be carried out, NewsFirst reported.
Police said the operation followed intelligence received by an officer attached to the CID’s counter-terrorism operations unit, indicating that an organised criminal currently hiding overseas had arranged a shooting in the Kompannavidiya area of Colombo on Tuesday night.
The arrests
Officers moved on the area and detained a motorcyclist who had allegedly arrived to collect the gunman assigned to carry out the attack. He was found with a revolver in his possession, police said, and repeatedly tried to get away before officers stopped him.
A search of the man’s home, carried out with the Police Special Task Force, turned up ten rounds of ammunition that investigators believe are compatible with the revolver. Information from that suspect led police to three further arrests: the alleged main suspect, said to have been directing the operation from inside Sri Lanka, a woman accused of transporting the revolver, and a fourth person linked to the plot.
Investigators said the intended target was a close associate of a well-known drug trafficker, and that the plan was directed from abroad. Two mobile phones allegedly supplied to the group by the overseas organiser were recovered, along with the motorcycle intended for use in the attack, which police said carried a fraudulent chassis number.
A forensic link to an earlier shooting
Forensic testing has tied the same revolver to a shooting reported in Ratmalana on August 15, according to NewsFirst. Police allege the principal suspect in the Colombo plot acted as the gunman in that incident, and that the motorcyclist arrested with the weapon played the same role there.
NewsFirst did not name the Ratmalana case. A fatal shooting was reported on the same date in the adjoining Mount Lavinia area, where a 40-year-old man from Ragama was shot dead on Huludagoda Road by two men on a motorcycle using a revolver-type firearm. Police have not publicly linked the two, and this report does not treat them as the same incident.
Authorities said the investigation has surfaced information about several other alleged plans involving the suspects, and that further operations have been launched.
The case adds to a run of gun attacks around Colombo’s southern suburbs this month, including five arrests over a shooting targeting a relative of Kanjipani Imran, and follows the government’s push to repatriate underworld figures operating from abroad.
No one has been charged, and the allegations set out by police are untested.
