Two children were killed and several members of their family injured when a hand grenade was thrown at a house on Sirisangabo Road, Kawdana, Dehiwala, in the early hours of Friday morning, police said.

Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror both report that the dead were brothers aged 10 and 14. A hospital spokesperson said the 10-year-old died on admission to Kalubowila Teaching Hospital and his 14-year-old brother died while receiving treatment.

Their 52-year-old father and two other children were seriously injured in the explosion and taken to the same hospital. The father remains under treatment.

NewsFirst gives different particulars for the same attack, putting the children’s ages at 11 and 17 and the father’s at 55, and reporting the father as the only other casualty. It is alone in timing the attack at about 3:20 a.m. and in describing the street as Sirisangabo Mawatha rather than Sirisangabo Road. Two of the three newsrooms agree on the younger ages and on the additional injured children; none explains the divergence.

Motive

Police Media Spokesperson Assistant Superintendent F. U. Wootler told NewsFirst the attack is suspected to be the result of an ongoing clash between two organised crime groups. Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror both state that the circumstances have yet to be established, and neither repeats the organised-crime attribution. Police say investigations are continuing.

A second grenade in two days

The attack follows a grenade thrown at a house on Wimalasiri Mawatha, Kohuwala on Thursday — about two kilometres away, in the same Dehiwala–Mount Lavinia police area — which ASP Wootler also attributed to a feud between rival criminal factions. No injuries were reported there.

The suburb has seen a run of organised-crime violence: the brother-in-law of a figure known as ‘Kos Malli’ was hacked to death at Oban Place, Dehiwala on 7 September. Police reported last week that Sri Lanka had recorded 34 underworld shootings this year, 17 of them fatal.

Update (September 11): police say the attackers hit the wrong house

A police probe has found the grenade was thrown at the wrong house, the Daily Mirror reported later on Friday morning.

According to preliminary investigations, the attackers had intended to target a neighbouring residence reportedly linked to a drug distributor associated with the organised-crime figure “Badowita Asanka.” The grenade was instead thrown at the adjacent house, killing the two children inside.

Police believe the attack was retaliation in a continuing feud between rival groups associated with “Badowita Asanka” and “Kos Malli,” the Daily Mirror said. Hiru News reported that police have assigned three teams to the investigation and confirmed the attribution to a clash between organised crime gangs, without naming either faction.

That places the attack in the same feud as the killing of ‘Kos Malli’s’ brother-in-law at Oban Place, Dehiwala on 7 September, though no outlet makes that link explicitly.

The Daily Mirror’s update repeats NewsFirst’s particulars — ages 11 and 17, a 55-year-old father, the 3.20 a.m. timing and Sirisangabo Mawatha — rather than the younger ages given by Ada Derana and its own earlier report. The divergence remains unexplained. Hiru News describes the dead only as “two school students” and says the father was hospitalised and the bodies are at the Kalubowila Hospital mortuary.

The attackers knocked on the door first

A fuller NewsFirst account published at 12.46pm answers the question every earlier report left open — how the grenade was delivered.

A group of unidentified men arrived at the house and knocked on the door. After the occupants opened it, the attackers threw the hand grenade and fled, NewsFirst reported, citing police. That detail makes the mistaken address harder to explain: the attackers waited for someone to answer before throwing.

ASP Wootler is quoted directly in that report confirming the wrong-target finding — investigators believe the intended target was the home of a man allegedly involved in narcotics distribution and linked to “Badovita Asanka” (NewsFirst’s spelling; the Daily Mirror writes “Badowita”), and that the attack is tied to the feud between his faction and a rival group led by “Kos Malli.”

The family

Neighbours ran to the house after hearing the father screaming, NewsFirst reported, quoting one of them. It is the first account to identify anyone in the household: the father is named as Nalin, described by the neighbour as a three-wheeler driver in the area.

“We ran to the house after hearing him screaming and crying. When we asked what had happened, we were told that Nalin’s two children had died,” the neighbour said, putting the time at about 3.20 or 3.30 in the morning. “He is a very innocent man who drives a three-wheeler around this area. He never causes trouble for anyone. Those two children were also very innocent. That family struggled every day just to make ends meet.”

This report gives the ages as 11 and 17 and the father’s as 55, and — like the earlier NewsFirst piece — mentions no injured children beyond the two who died.

Update: police say the masterminds have been identified and have fled abroad

Senior DIG for the Western Province Sanjeewa Medawatte says police have identified the people directing crime in Dehiwala, Mount Lavinia and surrounding areas, and that steps are being taken to bring back those who have fled the country, Hiru News reported. He was speaking to reporters after an event in Moratuwa.

On the grenade attack itself, Hiru reports police suspect it was carried out on the instructions of “Kos Malli.” That is a firmer attribution than earlier accounts, which placed the attack inside the Badowita Asanka–Kos Malli feud without saying which side ordered it.

Hiru also restates the wrong-house finding with one detail no earlier report carried: it is the injured man’s brother who is connected to the Badowita Asanka drug network, and the target house had been changed, so the grenade was thrown at the brother’s home next door. The injured man himself, Hiru says, has no criminal charges against him.

A caution on the dates. Hiru filed the report on 12 September and dates the briefing to “today (11),” while placing the attack “yesterday early morning” — which would put it on 10 September. The attack is settled as the early hours of Friday 11 September across Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror and NewsFirst. Hiru’s relative time words do not hold; the date of the SDIG’s briefing cannot be fixed from its account.

Update (September 13): the children are named, and the UN calls for justice

Hiru News named the two dead boys on Sunday for the first time in any report: Dumidu Gihan, 11, and Kasun Rashmika, 17. Both were students of Dehiwala Shastrananda Vidyalaya. Their father, 55, suffered serious injuries to his legs, remains in hospital and is still under treatment.

United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka Marc-André Franche posted on his official X account that he was deeply shocked by the attack, said no child should ever be the victim of such violence, and stated that those responsible must face justice before the law. He conveyed condolences to the family.

Three details in the Hiru report matter beyond the statement:

The age divergence has now broken 3–2. Hiru gives the ages as 11 and 17 and the father’s as 55 — the same particulars as NewsFirst and the Daily Mirror’s later update, against the 10, 14 and 52 reported by Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror’s first filing. The naming of the boys makes the older set the better-supported one, though no outlet has corrected itself or explained the divergence.

Only three people were admitted. Hiru says “the severely injured father and his two sons” were taken to Kalubowila Hospital. That matches NewsFirst’s account of the father as the only other casualty and tells against the two additional injured children reported by Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror. The two surviving injured children reported on Friday may not exist.

CCTV shows one attacker, not a group. Hiru says the attack was captured on CCTV, showing an individual arriving in a three-wheeler, throwing the grenade and fleeing. That conflicts with NewsFirst’s police-sourced account of a group of men who knocked on the door and waited for it to be opened. A single attacker arriving by three-wheeler and a group that knocks first are not the same event, and no outlet has reconciled them. Neither the footage nor its source has been described further.

Hiru’s relative dating holds this time — it places the attack “early the day before yesterday,” which from a 13 September filing gives 11 September, the settled date. That is the opposite of its 12 September report, where the same phrasing pointed to the wrong day.

Update (September 14): two arrested, including the man who supplied the three-wheeler

Police have arrested two suspects over the attack, Hiru News and the Daily Mirror both reported on Monday — the first arrests since the grenade was thrown.

One of the two is the person who provided the three-wheeler used by those who carried out the attack, Hiru says. Neither outlet names either suspect, gives their ages, or says where or when they were detained.

This settles the vehicle question and points one way on the contradiction. The two competing accounts of the attack were Hiru’s CCTV description of a single man arriving by three-wheeler, and NewsFirst’s police-sourced account of a group of men who knocked on the door and waited for it to be opened. An arrest specifically of the three-wheeler’s supplier confirms a three-wheeler was used, which the CCTV account had and the NewsFirst account did not mention.

The Daily Mirror’s latest report also describes the grenade as thrown by “an unidentified assailant” — singular — where its own earlier reporting and NewsFirst’s described a group. On the balance of accounts a lone attacker arriving by three-wheeler is now the better-supported version, though Hiru’s reference to “the suspects” who were given the vehicle is plural, and no outlet has reconciled that or withdrawn the earlier account.

The age divergence is now effectively settled. The Daily Mirror’s arrest report gives the dead brothers’ ages as 11 and 17 and the father’s as 55 — the same particulars as NewsFirst, Hiru and the paper’s own later filings, against the 10, 14 and 52 of Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror’s very first report. Four filings to two, and the two boys have since been named. It also confirms the attack date as 11 September.

Neither outlet says whether the two arrested are the attackers themselves or accessories, whether either is connected to the “Badowita Asanka” or “Kos Malli” factions, whether the man who actually threw the grenade is among them, or whether the suspects have been produced before a magistrate.

Update (September 15): police say the main suspect is in custody

The main suspect in the attack has been arrested, along with the driver of the three-wheeler used to travel to the scene, the Deputy Inspector General of Police for Colombo South said on Tuesday, Hiru News reported.

It is the first time any outlet has said the man police regard as principally responsible is in custody, and the first time an officer of DIG rank has been named as the source on the arrests. The DIG restated the wrong-address finding, describing the attack as a crime committed against the wrong location.

Whether these are new arrests is not clear from the reporting. On Monday, Hiru and the Daily Mirror both reported two arrests, one of them the man who provided the three-wheeler. Tuesday’s account gives two people again — the main suspect and the man who drove it. Providing a vehicle and driving it are different roles, but no outlet states a running total, names anyone, or says whether Tuesday’s two are the same pair described on Monday or a further two. The Daily Mirror’s video desk filed the story on Tuesday lunchtime under the headline “Two arrested over three-wheeler used in deadly attack” — the same framing it used on Monday, which points toward one set of arrests described twice rather than four people in custody. That is an inference, not a reconciliation: neither outlet makes it.

NewsFirst, which carried the fullest early reporting on the attack, has not filed on this development.

If the main suspect is the man who threw the grenade, his arrest would also bear on the unresolved question of how many attackers there were — the CCTV account described one man arriving by three-wheeler, the police account a group who knocked at the door. A main suspect arrested alongside a driver, with no other attacker mentioned, again fits the lone-attacker version. No outlet says what role the main suspect is alleged to have played.

Still not reported

No outlet gives the family’s surname or says who occupied the house that was hit. None names the drug distributor said to live next door or the brother now identified as the link, or says whether the intended target’s household was warned or is under protection. None names the two people arrested or states their role in the attack. None reconciles the conflicting casualty count, or squarely resolves the conflict between the CCTV account of a lone attacker on a three-wheeler and the police account of a group at the door, though the arrests point toward the former. None says whether the CCTV footage identified the suspects or whether it has been released.

On the SDIG’s statement, no outlet says how many people have been identified as masterminds, which countries they have fled to, whether extradition or Interpol notices have been sought, or whether “Kos Malli” and “Badowita Asanka” are among them.

Sources