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with the killers ASP Roshan de Silva said the investigations were being carried out with an open mind and they were yet to establish the motive for the killings even after questioning the driver, the conductor and some co-passengers. The two youths, friends from their school days at Colombo Ashoka Vidyala, were on their way back home last Sunday after buying a mobile phone from a friend in Bentara. Niluka Suranga Weerasinghe, (22) from Nawinna and Gihan Prasad Gamage (21) from Homagama, boarded a bus in Aluthgama and since they had no seats were standing closer to the entrance. As the bus approached Moratuwa, the killer's mobile phone rang. Within seconds he stood up, walked up to the two youths, pulled out a pistol and shot them, before he along with an accomplice jumped off the moving bus and ran away. Niluka had returned to Sri Lanka from the Maldives after serving in an audit firm there while Gihan had just been selected for a job, which he was to assume last Wednesday. Family members of Niluka and Gihan claim that the shooting was definitely a mistaken identity and insist that to their knowledge they had no enemies. Gihan's father, Gunapala Gamage, who was in Kaduruwela when the shocking incident occurred, said his son had called his brother on the new mobile phone when they were at Kalutara and told him that they would reach home around 10 p.m. That was the last they heard from him. A few hours later, the brother's phone rang again. It was the Police who told him about the tragedy. Gihan, who captained the school under 19 cricket team, was a musician as well, He, together with Niluka and some friends, were due to release their first audio cassette in December. Niluka's brother in law, Dushantha Peiris, told The Sunday Times that they were planning to get-together that fateful night to celebrate the return of Niluka from the Maldives. "We told Niluka to come back home early that day. Since he was getting late we called his mobile phone and the person, who answered identified himself as Sub Inspector Sarath, told us that our brother had met with an accident. We did not believe that and disconnected the phone. "Thereafter Niluka's father called the same number and got the same response. We rushed to the Moratuwa police and then to Lunawa hospital where the shocking news awaited us," Dushantha said. The family members of both victims say they believe the police probe will establish that Gihan and Niluka were certainly victims of mistaken identity. |
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