Two people have been injured in a shooting at a hotel in Kegalle, NewsFirst reported on Saturday.
Police said an argument broke out between a group attending a party at the hotel and members of the hotel’s staff. During the altercation, a hotel employee allegedly opened fire with an air rifle.
The two injured were admitted to Kegalle Hospital for treatment. Police arrested the employee alleged to have fired the weapon and recovered the air rifle.
On the weapon
Air rifles are not treated as firearms in the way a shotgun or pistol is, and they are held in Sri Lanka for pest control and sport. They are also capable of causing serious injury at close range, particularly to the eyes and face — which is the distance a fight inside a hotel implies.
NewsFirst does not describe the injuries or their severity, so how serious this was is not established by the reporting.
Not reported
The report does not name the hotel or give its location within Kegalle, and does not say when the incident happened — no date, no time. It gives no names or ages for the arrested employee or the two injured, and does not say whether the injured were guests at the party or passers-by.
It does not say what the argument was about, how many people were involved on either side, or how many shots were fired. Nothing indicates whether the air rifle was licensed, whether it belonged to the employee or the hotel, or why it was on the premises.
No charge is reported, the police station handling the case is not named, and there is no indication whether the employee has been produced before a court. The hotel’s management is not quoted.
This is a single-source report — the incident did not appear on the Daily Mirror or Hiru News listings at the time of writing, and everything above comes from the police account relayed by NewsFirst.