Cattle thieves arrested

A gang of thieves who were engaged in catching the stray cattle who loiter on the roads had been nabbed with the help of CCTV cameras by the Haldumulla Police.

Sources revealed that this gang was well skilled in catching the cattle while travelling in a vehicle using lassos. With the complaints of cattle gone missing in the Haldumulla area, the police had examined the CCTV Video footage from the cameras fixed onto several business institutions along the main road and obtained details of how this gang engages in this act.

The police with the aid of the Video footage had been able to trace the van involved in Balangoda, and were able to nab four suspects after investigations conducted by SP Sudath Masinghe of Bandaraweela Police and OIC of Haldumulla Police M.P.DE Silva. The suspects, all residents of Balangoda, had spilled the beans after they were taken into custody. The stolen cattle have been slaughtered by the suspects and the meat had been transported to Colombo in refrigerated trucks. The suspects had confessed that they catch the stray cattle during midnight or in the early mornings and calves had been their targets most of the time. The meat of the calves had been mixed with mutton and sold as mutton to some of the tourist hotels in Colombo. Police sources also revealed that all the suspects were drug addicts.