Special Task Force to be housed in Colombo’s critical police stations

Colombo, January 21 (Daily Mirror) - Sri Lanka Police has taken a crucial decision to call in the services of its Special Task Force to back crime-fighting operations and house them at six critical police stations in Colombo, in a bid to counter the increasing wave of organised shootings, the Daily Mirror learns.

Since January 1 to date seven organised shootings involving underworld gang rivalry and contract killings have taken place countrywide with many reported from Colombo, where five individuals had been killed.

The first such organised shooting was reported from Weligama related to underworld gang rivalry and two were reported from Badowita in Attidiya, Mt. Lavinia, Kohuwala and another from Mannar.

A senior official at the department told the Daily Mirror that they decided to deploy contingents of STF to six police stations identified to be requiring critical assistance in countering these organised shootings.

Usually, the STF is housed in their respective camps in and out of Colombo and when necessary their services are called in for any emergency. However, this would be the first time the STF is deployed in regular police stations, the Daily Mirror learns.

When contacted, Police Spokesperson SSP Buddhika Manatunga AAL told the Daily Mirror yesterday that they are paying serious attention to these organised shootings and will beef up security.

The police will set up snap roadblocks and increase mobile patrol units day and night where the crime map is showing highly active in addition to the deployment of the STF.

He said these shootings mainly occur as a result of longstanding rivalries between organised armed gangs over narcotic business, and it is unlikely the lives of the public are at risk. “It is not like in ‘Chicago’, where the public is gunned down but the members of the organised gangs,” the spokesman said.