More than 2,000 rounds of ammunition have been recovered from an abandoned well in the Anthonypuram area of Palaly, Jaffna, police said.
A group of people cleaning the old well found the rounds submerged in the water and alerted police, who inspected the site, the Daily Mirror reported. Police put the haul at around 2,200 rounds of various types.
Investigators suspect the ammunition was placed in the well during the country’s wartime period, possibly so it could be retrieved later.
The recovered rounds are to be produced before the Mallakam Magistrate’s Court. Palaly Police are continuing investigations.
Not the first well
The find closely echoes an earlier one. In August 2025, police recovered 1,393 bullets from an abandoned well at Kodikamam in the Jaffna district, found in a bag unearthed while sediment was being cleared from a well that had lain unused for years, Ada Derana reported at the time. Those rounds were corroded, were also attributed to the armed-conflict period, and were produced before the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court, after which the bomb disposal unit was to deactivate them.
Two comparable recoveries in thirteen months, both from disused wells being cleaned in Jaffna, point to a pattern rather than a one-off — though no outlet has reported whether police treat them as related or hold any figure for how much wartime ordnance remains hidden in the peninsula.
Palaly is best known as the site of the military-held airbase and the surrounding high-security zone, land that has been the subject of a long-running return-of-land campaign by displaced residents and of acquisition disputes tied to airport expansion. The Daily Mirror’s report does not place the well in relation to those areas.
Update — NewsFirst puts the count at 2,249 and the type at T-56
September 6, later. NewsFirst has since reported the find with a precise figure and a different account of how it came to light, putting the haul at 2,249 rounds of T-56 ammunition recovered from the abandoned well — which it spells Antonypuram, the more common form in this archive.
The two reports diverge on three points, and neither outlet acknowledges the other:
- Type. The Daily Mirror said police put the haul at “around 2,200 rounds of various types.” NewsFirst reports a single type — T-56 — and an exact count of 2,249.
- How it was found. The Daily Mirror described people cleaning the old well finding the rounds and alerting police. NewsFirst says the discovery followed a tip-off from the owners of the land on which the well stands.
- Condition and container. The Daily Mirror said the rounds were submerged in the water. NewsFirst says they were found inside a box.
A box in a well is consistent with submersion, and landowners could have both cleaned the well and reported it, so the accounts are not strictly incompatible. But an exact figure of 2,249 alongside a single ammunition type is a materially different claim from “around 2,200 of various types,” and no police figure has been issued to settle it.
NewsFirst also answers one question left open below: police say a court order will be obtained to proceed with the disposal of the ammunition. That fits the Daily Mirror’s account of the rounds being produced before the Mallakam Magistrate’s Court, and indicates the material is headed for destruction rather than evidence retention.
If the T-56 identification holds, it strengthens the wartime-cache reading: T-56 was the standard rifle of the conflict, and the 1,393 rounds recovered from a Kodikamam well in August 2025, described above, were attributed to the same period.
Not reported
Neither outlet said what condition the rounds are in or whether they remain usable, when the find occurred, or whether anyone has been arrested or questioned. Neither reported whether the bomb disposal unit has been called in, whether the site is being searched further, or how the two differing accounts of the discovery are reconciled. The landowners NewsFirst credits with the tip-off are not named, and neither report says whether they are connected to the people the Daily Mirror describes as cleaning the well.
Ada Derana and Hiru News had not carried the report at the time of writing.
