Police probing incident at Elephant House in Ranala

The police have launched an investigation into an incident that had taken place at the Elephant House Beverage Company in Ranala, Kaduwela, where its manpower employees had been allegedly threatened by some outsiders on Tuesday.

Nugegoda Division SP Laksiri Geethal said police were aware of the incident and that an investigation would be carried out to determine whether it was an act of sabotage.

According to the reports, operations of the beverage company came to a standstill on Tuesday after a group of manpower employees refrained from reporting to work due to alleged threats by an underworld gang leader.

It was reported that earlier, an underworld gangster known as 'Samayan' had been operating from prison by supplying manpower employees and transportation to the company.

However, after the assassination of Samayan, several businessmen had deployed five lorries and also employed manpower workers at the company.

It was reported that after the death of Samayan, an underworld gang led by 'Urujuwa' from Kaduwela had tried to control the manpower workers and lorries.

As a result, two of the lorry's were removed from the company following the assault of a businessman named Sarath, who provided lorries to the company two months ago.

The management of the company is reported to have refused the request of gangster Urujuwa's attempt to deploy two of his lorries to fill the shortage. Then he alleged to have threatened the manpower workers to refrain from working.