Tit-for-tat response

During the past few years we have witnessed, mass murder like that of the west where persons were shot or chopped to death by professional killers. Today contract killings are undertaken and executed by underworld gangs for large sums of money.

It has become so common to read in newspapers about these horrendous killings. It happens all the time now because criminals are well armed with sophisticated firearms like the T-56.

It all began a few years ago with the gruesome murder of a family at Hokandra. Five persons including the father and his four children were butchered at their home in Hokandara by ruthless men engaged in the illicit liquor trade.

Then came the barbaric killing of a family at Fraser avenue Dehiwela where the father, son and the daughter were stabbed to death by assassins who had entered their house.

After killing the father the killers hid in the house until the daughter and the son arrived and then stabbed them to death. Presumably a contract killing over a dispute regarding a piece of land.

The case is now pending before courts. The other contract killing that shocked most of us was when assassins ambushed and shot to death Inspector Nimal Douglas and his wife who were on their way to Colombo from their home at Athurugiriya. The couple was on their way to the Human Rights Commission in Colombo that morning when fate befell them at Athurigiriya.

Since then many murders have taken place with alarming frequency mainly in the Western and Southern provinces. Last week's killing of a family at Mahawatte in Megahawatte shocked the entire nation.

A man, his wife, and two children and an old woman relative were chopped to death while they were asleep in their home at Mahawatte. The assassins had entered their home in the wee hours of the morning and chopped them with knives while grievously injuring a 12 year old girl.

The girl is now lying in a critical state at the National Hospital Colombo. The deceased were later identified as W.M. Karunatilake (36) D. Ramyalatha (32) Dilshan Maduwantha, Savintha Lakshan (4) while the girl who sustained serious injuries was identified as Dinusha Madurangani.

The bodies were found in the bed room and in the kitchen. The two assassins who committed the mass murder is believed to have raped the mother before they killed her. Apparently the motive for the killing was over a land dispute between the family and the two killers.

The dispute was over 40 acres of land in two separate blocks located in the Mahawatte area. The matter was pending before court. However the two killers feared that the family would benefit from the court case which was due soon. So the two men conspired together and decided to annihilate the entire family with the idea of possessing the land.

The deceased Karunatilleke was a welder by profession who worked in a garage at Degoda in the Udupila area. He was a harmless man who minded his own business. It was subsequently revealed that the two killers abandoned their homes and went into hiding after the crime. Enraged by the mass killing, the villagers of Mahawatte took the law in to their own hands and set ablaze the houses of the main suspect and three more houses that belonged to his relatives.

The fifth house that was torched had belonged to a man who had undertaken the contract to wipe out the family. Soon after the killings the village folk gathered at the scene and pelted stones at the house of the two suspects. They even felled several trees in the vicinity in order to set ablaze the two houses. A large crowd from the adjoining villages had gathered at Mahawatte to witness the inferno.

On May 21 the five bodies were laid to rest at a mass burial at the public cemetery at Delgoda Mahawatte. According to reports a large crowd gathered there to pay their last respects.

In the meantime SSP Keleniya, Nihal Samarakoon had detailed four police teams to track down the killers. Police recorded the statements of several persons from the village during the first two days of the murder to identify the killers.

However suspicion fell on three persons who had fled from the village after the murder was committed. Within a short spell of time, Police were able to gather a wealth of information on the suspected killers.

It later transpired in the course of the inquiry that two men had committed rape and massacred the family while the third man had watched the gory slaying. Finally the police traced the two killers hiding in a house in an adjoining village. While being questioned the suspects had confessed to the police about the gory killing.

Thereafter the two killers had led the police party to a jungle in Delgoda to show them where they had hidden the knives. While the killers were searching the jungle for the knives, the two suddenly turned around and attempted to lob hand grenade at the police. However the policemen sprang in to action and shot them dead before the grenades were thrown at them.

Meanwhile DIG North Western Range, Sarth Jayasundera, SSP Keleniya Division Nihal Samarakkon, and ASP Megahawatte, Jayatha Liyanage, have directed OIC Megahawatte Police, Chief Inspector Chandimal Wijesighe to conduct further investigations in to the incident.

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