The Crime Branch CID (CB-CID) of Tamil Nadu police on Monday took over the investigation into the recent death of suspected Sri Lankan fugitive gangster Maddumage Lasantha Chandana Perera alias Angoda Lokka in Coimbatore. The Hindu newspaper reported.
The agency will probe his illegal stay in the country, alleged fabrication of documents, impersonation and helps he got during exile.
Director General of Police J.K. Tripathy transferred the investigation to CB-CID after reviewing reports of Coimbatore city police and ‘Q’ Branch, said sources.
K. Shankar, Inspector General of Police, CB-CID, said that a case has been registered to begin the investigation. The CB-CID team received case documents from the city police. The local police and ‘Q’ branch suspect that the fugitive had help from sympathisers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during his stay in Coimbatore for about two years.
A senior police officer, who is part of the investigation, said that the father of D. Sivakamasundari, a native of Madurai, who was arrested by the police on Sunday for helping Lokka, was an LTTE sympathiser. The police found that Lokka managed to obtain fake Aadhaar cards in the name of Pradeep Singh in two addresses – one from West Bengal and another one from Madurai.
“Details emerged in the investigation indicated possible roles of LTTE sympathisers,” said the officer.
Amani Thanji (27), a woman from Colombo who had visited Lokka at least three times in Coimbatore, had come to the city last on March 5 and she could not go back to Sri Lanka due to COVID-19 lockdown.
Her husband was killed in Sri Lanka in 2017 and Lokka’s role is suspected behind the murder, according to the police.
After her arrest on Sunday, Thanji was admitted to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) as she developed health complications. “The woman told us that she was two months pregnant and had consumed pills to terminate the pregnancy after the death of Lokka,” the officer said.
Sivakamasundari’s friend S. Dyaneswaran (32) of Erode, who was also arrested on Sunday, helped Lokka in finding houses in Coimbatore and other arrangements, according to the police.
Lokka stayed in an apartment at Saravanampatti in Coimbatore before moving to Cheran Ma Nagar in the city early this year.
The illegal stay of Lokka in Coimbatore came to light when the police verified an Aadhaar card copy that Sivakamasundari submitted at the Peelamedu police station in Coimbatore on July 4, a day after Lokka’s death to complete post-mortem formalities.
As per the First Information Report, Thanji took Lokka to a private hospital around 9.30 p.m. on July 3 where he was declared brought dead. The body was later shifted to CMCH for postmortem. The FIR said that Sivakamasundari came to Coimbatore on Thanji’s request and managed to take the body to Madurai for cremation, by submitting fake documents to the police.
G. Stalin, Deputy Commissioner of Police (law and order), Coimbatore city, said that Lokka was not doing any specific work in Coimbatore.
“He had enough money with him. No weapon was found in his house,” he said. (Colombo Gazette)