Police seeks public help to identify suspect

Death of passenger in Kottawa:

The Police Special Crimes Investigation Unit had released a photo of a suspect said to be involved in a dust-up with a passenger of a bus in Kottawa in 2016, who later ended up dead.

Police said the Kottawa Police had admitted a passenger who had been found on the roadside to the Homagama Hospital on June 9, 2016. The passenger was later transferred to the Colombo National Hospital but had died two weeks later.

The Kottawa Police, who launched an investigation into the passenger’s death, had recovered an image of the suspect after examining CCTV footage of the incident captured from cameras installed on a building in the area in which the alleged assault took place.

The CCTV footage shows the suspect throwing a punch at the passenger who then falls to the ground. The police had released the identity of the passenger as being Aruna Ranasinghe, a resident of Galawila in Homagama.

The investigation into the passenger’s death was handed over to the Special Crimes Investigation Unit (SCIU) after a brother of the deceased lodged a complaint with the IGP’S special desk.

Police have requested the public to come forward if they have any information about the suspect appearing in the picture released by them and inform the SCIU via phone no’s 011 -2809243 or 077-7231892.