Kalutara murder is a love hunt

The sacred Hajj festival day, which should have been filled with devotion and peace, dawned upon the Wettumakada area of Kalutara, bringing with it a bloody tragedy that shook the entire region. A businessman, who had completed religious rituals eagerly awaited for a year and was returning home on his motorcycle with great devotion, was subjected to an inhumane T-56 firearm attack by underworld contract killers and died on the roadside.

Mohammed Isham Afrid, a 43-year-old cattle businessman residing in Marikkar Street, Kalutara South, was subjected to this horrific murder yesterday (28th) morning.

Isham, who had attended the special morning prayers at the Wettumakada Mosque for the Hajj festival, was then preparing to go for a business activity of buying and selling cattle for the festival. However, as he was traveling on his motorcycle along the Wettumakada road, a grey car parked by the roadside suddenly came forward and blocked his path. CCTV footage has revealed that as the motorcycle stopped, unable to do anything, an armed person inside the car fired a T-56 weapon at the target from within the vehicle. He had already breathed his last when he was admitted to the Kalutara Nagoda General Hospital with serious injuries from the gunshot.

According to police investigations, this is an organized murder carried out on a monetary contract due to a personal grudge. It has been initially revealed that a long-standing love affair dispute between the deceased businessman and his close relative, Imran, was the cause. This Imran is a close associate of 'Naveen,' who is considered a powerful figure in the Kalutara underworld. Isham had received death threats on several previous occasions, and information has also been received that the car used by the killers was parked near the house of a criminal gang member in Hineatiyangala, Kalutara, on the night before the murder (27th).

It appears that the suspects launched a sophisticated plan for this crime through the tactic of changing vehicles. The gunmen initially arrived in a small white van, and then switched to a car to carry out the attack. After the crime, the fleeing killers abandoned the car, which had a white sticker on its rear window, near the Thebuwana Post Office (in the Naebada area), where it was found by the police. Furthermore, the van they initially used was also abandoned near the Dodangoda expressway entrance on the Kalutara-Mathugama road. Preliminary investigations have revealed that this car was registered in the name of an individual from the Sapugaskanda area in Kelaniya and had been given to an institution on a rental basis.

It remains a highly problematic situation whether this murder was merely a family dispute or an act carried out based on a suspicion within the underworld that the deceased businessman was acting as an informant to the police. As of yesterday evening, the police had not succeeded in arresting any suspects connected to the attack, and extensive investigations are underway based on CCTV footage from the scene and fingerprints found in the vehicles. Several investigative teams have already launched operations under the guidance of Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Sajeeva Medawatta, who is in charge of the Western Province, and under the direction of high-ranking police officers, including Kalutara Divisional Police Superintendent Ravindu de Silva.

The fact that underworld contract killers are allowed to determine the value of a human life on a sacred festival day, when hearts should be healed with religious devotion, is a matter that shakes the entire society with fear.