A Chief Inspector has been arrested over the murder of a 'Podi Lassi' associate found in the Gin River

A Chief Inspector of Police has been arrested in connection with the murder of a close associate of the underworld figure known as “Podi Lassi”, whose body was found in the Gin River, NewsFirst reported at 10.57 a.m. on Thursday.

The arrest was made during an operation conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department.

The killing

The body was discovered near the Wakwella Bridge in the Gin River at Poddala on 22 June. Police said the victim’s face had been severely disfigured and that his hands and feet had been tied.

Those two details together describe a body prepared for disposal and for non-identification, which is consistent with the four-month gap between the discovery and this arrest. NewsFirst does not say whether the victim was ever formally identified, and does not report a cause of death.

Who ‘Podi Lassi’ is

The nickname belongs to Arumahandi Janith Madhusankha de Silva, described by The Island as an alleged organised crime figure and large-scale drug trafficker. He was brought back to Sri Lanka from India in late February after evading arrest for about a year, and was to be handed to the Galle Crimes Division — the same southern district in which the Gin River killing took place four months later. That report predates this story by more than seven months and is noted here as background rather than cited as a source for the arrest.

This newsroom has not previously covered the Podi Lassi case.

What the arrest implies

A serving Chief Inspector — a mid-senior rank that typically commands a police station or a divisional unit — being taken into custody by the CID over a gangland killing is the substance of this story, and it is the part NewsFirst reports most thinly. The filing does not name the officer, give his station or unit, say what role he is alleged to have played, or state whether others have been arrested in the same operation.

It also does not say what connects the officer to the victim or to Podi Lassi’s network, or whether the arrest followed a complaint, an informant, forensic evidence or a confession by another suspect.

Not reported

NewsFirst names neither the arrested officer nor the victim. It does not say when the officer will be produced before a magistrate, whether he has been interdicted or suspended from duty, or whether the Police Commission or the Inspector General’s office has commented.

No figure is given for how many people have been arrested over the June killing in total, and there is no indication whether Podi Lassi himself — who was in custody as of February — is a suspect, a witness or neither in this case.

This report rests on a single verified newsroom. A search of Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror, Hiru News, Colombo Gazette, The Island and Daily FT found no other verified outlet carrying the arrest at the time of writing; Ada Derana remains unreachable from this desk, returning HTTP 403 for a twenty-sixth consecutive day.

Sources: NewsFirst.