27 August 2019 12:10 am
A businessman and his motorcycle rider were killed in a shooting incident last Sunday night near a hospital at Pahathgama in Hanwella.
The deceased were Wadduwage Vijith Premalal alias Sumedha (42) of Pahathgama and his motorcycle rider Muruthettuwa Gamaralalage Ravindu Lakshan (22) of Padukka. The slain businessman was a father of three.
The assailants, wearing full-face helmets, had entered the businessman’s house by breaking the front door and made his mother, wife and brother kneel down while they shot the businessman.
Investigations revealed that the assailants threatened the businessman’s wife that she and her children would be killed if she did not call her husband and ask him to return home immediately. Accordingly, she had called her husband and asked him to return home immediately as one of their children was seriously ill. The assailants who lay in ambush in the home garden had shot the businessman and his motorcycle rider as soon as they arrived. The two men who sustained serious head injuries were rushed to the Avissawella Base Hospital by the police only to be pronounced dead.
Avissawella Acting Magistrate Sarath Jayawardene who visited the scene and held the preliminary magisterial inquiry ordered the police to arrest the suspects.
Police said the businessman concerned had been on remand in connection with a murder in 2014 and released on bail. A senior police officer said they expected to identify the suspects from CCTV footage in the area.