Was the old man killed due to previous enmity?

After being grilled at the Wanduraba police station for several hours it became apparent to the policemen that the suspect taken in for questioning in connection with the slaying of 76-year-old Gunadasa who led a reclusive life at Thalawa in the Wanduraba area was not even remotely connected to the killing.

While being interrogated the suspect told police that on the day of the incident he had taken two bottles of liquor along with him and delivered to Gunadasa at his home. He apparently left Gunadasa’s home after chatting to him for a while. Gunapala was a habitual drunkard and the bootlegger who supplied him with illicit hooch had a friendly rapport with him. The police set the man free as there wasn’t any evidence to incriminate him in the slaying. Moreover they were satisfied the liquor supplier hadn’t a motive to kill Gunadasa who gave him business.

The Wanduraba police on hearing about the death of Gunapala alias Kalu-Aiya visited his home that day. The police party was accompanied by OIC Wanduraba Police station, Inspector Sumedha Wimalaguneratne, Inspector Buddhika Panawela, Sub-Inspector Priyankara Paranavithana, Police Sergeant Rohana and Police Constable Dhammika. They began an investigation into the murder soon after arriving at the scene of the crime.

They found Gunapala lying in a pool of blood at his home. Police brought in sniffer dogs to the scene but the assassin could not be traced. The injuries found on Gunapala’s body was severe. The killer had chopped off the victims neck with a sharp cutting weapon.

Policemen searched thoroughly for the weapon but could not find it in the home. Obviously the killer had removed the weapon elsewhere. The murder of Gunadasa rattled the Aluthkumbura, Thalawa village, a quiet hamlet in the tea growing district of Wanduraba. An eerie silence fell over the village. People began to whisper about the cruel death of Gunapala who was hacked to death by an unknown assassin.

After all the people who lived in the village belonged to a closely knit community. They knew each other by their names. Villagers were shocked beyond words because Gunadasa did not have enemies in the area. He minded his own business and spent his time at taverns and at illicit hooch dens because he had nothing else to do.

To begin with police only had circumstantial evidence to commence their investigation at the home of the deceased.

The assassin was nowhere to be found and neither was the weapon used in the murder. The room was splattered with blood.

The few items Gunapala possessed was not removed from his home. Nobody saw or heard Gunadasa crying out for help while he was attacked at his home. He being a bachelor lived alone at his home. While his house was being searched thoroughly for clues police came across a lock of hair that had got entangled in the finger nails of the deceased. “It was obvious that Gunadasa had struggled with the assassin before his throat was slashed with a sharp cutting weapon.” police said. Police collected blood and the lock of hair as samples to be forwarded to the Government Analyst for a report.

Police said they hope to forward the lock of hair for a DNA test through a court order.

Meanwhile police began questioning people who lived in close proximity to the deceased home.

The breakthrough finally came in at length when a neighbour confided that a man who knew Gunapala quite well was missing from his home since the killing. Armed with this bit of information police visited the man’s home at Wanduraba. The inmates of the home informed police that he had gone to Yakkalamulla to visit a relative of his. But subsequent attempt by the police to search him at Yakkalamulla proved futile. Nobody at Yakkalamulla knew the whereabouts of the 54 year old man. By now police had ample reasons to suspect the man was on the run having committed the heinous crime.

By then five days had lapsed without the assassin being arrested.

On a tip off, a police team left to Akmeemana and from there to Gampaha to arrest the suspect. They searched homes where the suspect could possibly hide but was unable to trace him. Nevertheless police kept a vigil for the suspect.

Last week a resident of Wanduraba phoned Inspector Wimalaguneratne and said the suspect he was looking for was seen in the Nagoda town. The Inspector lost no time dispatching a team of police officers to Nagoda to arrest the suspect.

The policemen lay in ambush for several hours at Nagoda town for the suspect.

They intercepted a three wheeler and found the suspect whom they were looking for in the Nagoda town.

The suspect was a resident of Aluthkumbura in Thalawa.

He was then taken in a jeep to Wanduraba police station where he was questioned in connection with the death of Gunapala. The man finally admitted to policemen that he killed Gunapala alias Kalu-Aiya after a quarrel. The suspect described the chain of events that occurred on that fateful day.

It all happened when Gunapala invited him home for a drink that evening. Gunapala had partaken some drinks with the suspect that eventually led to a quarrel. His mind flashed back to several years ago when he was a 16 year old boy how Gunapala, a vile tempered man assaulted him. He had an old score to settle with Gunapala.

The 54-year-old suspect told police exactly what happened. On that fateful day an argument had broken out and subsequently Gunapala rushed in to the kitchen and brought in a curved knife and started attacking the suspect.

The suspect, a tree climber was a strongly built person. He was able to ward off the knife attack and over-power the old man by sheer physical force.

He then grabbed the knife from his hand and chopped Gunapala’s throat using all his might. When Gunapala fell and started bleeding profusely, the suspect fled from the scene. He later went in to a relative’s home and narrated what took place.

“I have killed Kalu-Aiya,” he told the relative. Later police recovered the curved knife hidden in the roof of the suspect’s home along with the blood stained clothes.

Further investigations are being carried out by OIC Wanduraba, under the directions of Galle’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Keerthi de Silva.