The Police Special Task Force has arrested five suspects in connection with an abduction and murder in the Mattakkuliya Police Division earlier this week, Ada Derana reported on Sunday.
Preliminary investigations indicate the suspects abducted, strangled and drowned a victim on April 22, the same incident that led to the recovery of a 19-year-old’s body near the Nadee Viharaya the following morning.
A team of officers from the STF camp in Sri Jayawardenapura made the arrests on Saturday, April 25, after acting on intelligence received about the group’s location. The suspects were handed over to the Mattakkuliya Police Station for further inquiry.
Police said the five men are residents of Colombo 15 and Pamunugama and are aged between 23 and 36 years. They are scheduled to be produced before the Aluthkade Magistrate’s Court on Sunday, April 26. Mattakkuliya Police are continuing the investigation.
The Mattakkuliya area has seen a string of gang-linked killings in recent months, with police previously connecting incidents in the neighbourhood to narcotics trafficking and extortion networks. The STF has been increasingly deployed alongside divisional police on Colombo-area underworld cases since the Treasury and BIA-period crackdowns gathered pace earlier this month.
Source: Ada Derana
