Four locally made T-kata firearms seized in Dematagoda, 23-year-old arrested

Police have seized four locally manufactured firearms and arrested a 23-year-old man in a raid at Siridhamma Mawatha, Dematagoda.

The raid was carried out by the Western Province North Crimes Division, which recovered the weapons inside a house, NewsFirst reported on Tuesday morning.

Hiru News identifies the weapons as “T-kata” firearms modelled on the T-56 assault rifle — a detail NewsFirst does not carry.

NewsFirst reports that investigators believe the arrested man is involved in drug trafficking. Hiru’s account does not mention any narcotics link.

What a T-kata is

“T-kata” is the term used in Sri Lanka for crudely made, locally assembled firearms. They are improvised weapons rather than factory-produced rifles, and turn up regularly in police recoveries linked to organised crime in the Western Province. The comparison to the T-56 — the Chinese-made Kalashnikov derivative that was the standard infantry rifle through Sri Lanka’s civil war — describes the pattern they imitate, not their origin or capability.

Context

The Western Province North Crimes Division, headquartered at Peliyagoda, is the unit responsible for serious crime across the northern Colombo suburbs and has been behind a run of recent weapons and narcotics recoveries in the area. Outlets name the unit inconsistently — it also appears as the “Peliyagoda North Divisional Crime Division” — but it is a single command.

Neither report says whether the suspect has been produced in court, whether ammunition was recovered alongside the weapons, or whether police have traced where the firearms were assembled.

Sourcing note

Both filings are brief police-supplied items published within hours of each other on Tuesday. The drug-trafficking allegation rests on NewsFirst alone and is attributed to police investigators rather than to any charge filed. No image is used with this report: the hero photographs offered by both outlets are generic stock handcuff plates unconnected to this raid — NewsFirst’s is an asset first published in 2020, re-served under a 2026 path.