Businessman and driver murdered at Hanwella after using viber and checking faces of person to be killed

Businessman and driver murdered at Hanwella after using viber and checking faces of person to be killed

An incident where a businessman and is driver was murdered in the format akin to a scene of a film was reported from Hanwella, Pahathgama area. 

Two men with arms and faces masked had barged into a house day before yesterday around 9.15 in the night and had questioned people in the house whether there was a person by the name of Sumedha in the house. At that time however Sumedha was away from home while his wife, mother
and brother were present. The armed persons had shown the weapons in their possession and had threatened them with death and inquired information about Sumedha when Sumedha's wife has responded saying that he was not in. She has added that her husband had gone to check proceedings of a house being newly-built.

But these two assailants have not believed that story and had thought that the male present in the house was Sumedha. At that moment the two armed individuals had taken a video call across viber and asked whether the person in that video call was Sumedha. But the response did not confirm it. Later, wedding photos in the house were checked and when compared with the video, the other person has confirmed that it was Sumedha of course. 

Subsequently the armed assailants had aimed a firearm at Sumedha's wife and had threatened her asking her to give a false call saying that the child has fallen sick and for him to come home. Complying to their orders Sumedha's wife had given this call asking her husband to come home. Till his arrival people in the house were made to kneel down on the floor when even before 10 minutes elapsed the businessman had arrived with his driver on a motor-bike. No sooner the two of them were alighting from the bike, the assailants had opened fire at both of them. At that moment one of the armed individuals had been aiming a 9 mm. pistol at the people in the house while the other person has gunned down Sumedha his driver who were in front of the house with a T 56 rifle and beat a retreat. 

Sumedha who was a victim of the shooting in fact was a person who involved in a large-scale sand-mining business. It was Sumedha who carried on the business of providing sand for the erection of a marketing complex which is being newly erected in Peliyagoda, it was revealed at investigations. 

Accusations have been aimed at Sumedha for having murdered a person who is alleged to have had illicit connections with the wife of his previous marriage and that was in the year 2004, police say. The businessman who was murdered has been imprisoned for the murder he committed in 2014 and has been released on bail. A few days previously on a telephone call regarding an instance of providing sand to Peliyagoda by someone else an argument has flared up between the two and in the end there had also been a death-threat in the process. Under these circumstances it was not so far revealed whether this dual murder was the outcome of a business dispute or a family conflict. 

A police officer conducting investigations in connection with the murder mentioned that further inquiries would be launched after surveying CCTV camera data in the area concerned. The deceased incidentally is 43 year old Wadduwage Vijitha Premalal alias Sumedha living in Hanwella, Pahathgama and his driver, a 22 year old Muruththettu Gamlathge Ravindu. A large-scale investigation has been launched in this connection by 3 special police teams.