Angoda Lokka alias Pradeep Singh alias Maddumage Lasantha Chandana Perera, an underworld operative from Sri Lanka, who mysteriously landed on Indian shores, has died just as mysteriously leaving several questions unanswered. Wilson Thomas reports on the i
Brindavanam runs an eatery in a shack in Balaji Nagar in Coimbatore, a calm residential area less than five km from the airport. Normally he is busy selling hot dosas to customers, but now Brindavanam unwittingly finds himself in the spotlight. He is now a witness in a case involving a gangster and two nations.
On August 2, Brindavanam’s sedate routine was disrupted when news channels flashed the photo of a well-built man, a customer who used to buy dosas at his eatery, with the ‘breaking news’ tag that he was dead. News channels said the taciturn man in his thirties was Maddumage Lasantha Chandana Perera alias Angoda Lokka, an underworld operative from Sri Lanka.
Watching the news, it struck Brindavanam that the two-storied house close to his eatery had been swarming with men in khaki and plain clothes a day before, and that the police had been on the trail already. It was the first time he was hearing the name Angoda Lokka. Brindavanam had a feeling that this was just the beginning of a long story.
“He used to walk past my shop to the nearest garbage bin to dump waste once or twice a week, mostly after sunset,” Brindavanam said. “While walking back to his home, he would stop to place an order for dosa or ghee roast, and take the parcel home. He would not speak an extra word.” One of his employees added: “The police came by and showed us the photo of a man with a large tattoo on his biceps, which we recognised.” Brindavanam’s employees told the police that on some days, a woman also accompanied Lokka. The police later identified her as Amani Thanji, a 27-year-old Sri Lankan.
Soon, every person who was a part of the gangster’s limited life outside his home was interrogated. Lokka also used to frequent a grocery store to buy cigarettes. “At times, he spoke in broken Tamil. The conversation was mostly limited to the brand of cigarette he wanted,” said shopkeeper Velmurugan who did not know his regular customer’s name.
Prabhu, an instructor of a gym, where Lokka was a regular visitor since August 2019, was also questioned. He too painted what had become a familiar picture: that of a man who just minded his own business. Investigators also tried to find footage of Lokka from the surveillance camera at the gym, at a nearby locality called Cheran Ma Nagar, but they drew a blank.
From Sri Lanka to India
Though his was an unfamiliar name in India, in Sri Lanka, Angoda Lokka’s name popped up in the media every now and then over the last few years. Whenever the police arrested suspects in connection with narcotics smuggling cases, news reports would refer to some arrested men as associates of “underworld gangster Angoda Lokka”.
It was not just alleged drug traffickers who came under the police radar because of their suspected links to Lokka. On July 30, the local media reported that the police seized an eagle “suspected to have been used by underworld kingpin Angoda Lokka” in his alleged drug trafficking ring. The police intelligence unit also arrested two others at the time, while raiding a farm in the Western Province. The white bellied sea eagle, that the police suspected was “imported”, joined a growing list of “associates” of the wanted suspect.
Angoda Lokka, who took his name from the locality ‘Angoda’, 12 km from