A Sri Lanka Navy serviceman has been arrested over the theft of a T-56 assault rifle, which police say he removed from a naval vessel at the Kalpitiya Naval Base and handed to a third party.
The arrest was made in an operation by the Criminal Investigation Department, NewsFirst reported.
Police said the suspect handed over the firearm on the morning of 5 November, after carrying it from a vessel belonging to the Kalpitiya Naval Base to a vehicle that had pulled up near the base. A second suspect has also been arrested in connection with the case.
Where the weapon was found
Under questioning, investigators recovered the rifle from a deserted plot of land in the Ranala area, where it had been concealed near a tombstone.
The filing does not comment on the distance involved, but it is worth noting: Ranala lies inland in the Colombo district, while the Kalpitiya base is on the north-western coast more than 100 kilometres away. On the account given, the weapon was moved across much of the country before it was hidden.
Both men, including the serviceman, are being questioned under 72-hour detention orders.
Not reported
The filing does not name either suspect, give the serviceman’s rank or unit, or say who the third party was or what the weapon was intended for. It does not state how the theft came to light, how the CID identified the suspects, whether the rifle’s ammunition was recovered with it, or whether either man has been produced before a court. No comment from the Navy is reported.
Neither suspect has been charged. The 72-hour detention orders are an investigative step, not a finding.
A note on sourcing, and two stale look-alikes
No other verified newsroom had carried this arrest at the time of writing. The Daily Mirror and Hiru News rails were checked directly and carry nothing on it, and searches across verified Sri Lankan outlets returned no match. The report is single-source.
Two older stories resemble this one closely enough to be mistaken for it in search results, and both are long stale. NewsFirst itself ran “Navy Sailor Arrested With Missing T56 Assualt Rifle” in February 2025, and the Daily Mirror carried the same case as “Naval personal arrested over missing T-56 since 2021”. That was a different matter entirely: a rifle missing from the armoury of the Rangala camp at Colombo Harbour since 2021, recovered from the suspect’s home at Galpola, Kuliyapitiya.
Note how little separates the two in a search listing — “Rangala camp” against this week’s “Ranala area” are nearly the same string for places at opposite ends of the country. The facts that distinguish the current case are the Kalpitiya base, the 5 November handover to a waiting vehicle, and the recovery at Ranala.
