(COLOMBO) – One person was killed as police were forced to open fire on a group of alleged robbers at a location in Sri Lanka’s North-Western province on Tuesday evening, police said on Wednesday.
They said that two suspected robbers had fled during the incident that took place at Narammala-Kurunegala some 103 kilometres from the commercial capital of Colombo.
Initial investigations have revealed that the suspect robbers had lured unsuspecting customers to a remote location with the offer of selling Apple Iphones at a slashed price.
The customers had responded to a newspaper advert placed by the suspects.
The customers had however gone to the rendezvous point escorted by plainclothes police officers.
On arriving at the said location the suspects had attacked the vehicle in which the customers had arrived with sharp instruments prompting the police to open fire.
One suspect was killed on the spot while the remaining two had managed to escape in the melee, according to police.
In a separate incident on the same day unidentified assailants shot up a house owned by a suspected leader of a crime gang at Athurugiriya in the suburbs of Colombo.
The assailants had fired seven rounds from a semi-automatic assault rifle before fleeing the area, according to police.
The occupants of the house were not at home at the time of the incident.
The chief occupant of the house whom police identified only as ‘Muthuwa’ is known to operate a crime syndicate from an overseas capital where he has been residing for the past several years.
He is also a person of interest in an ongoing police investigation into a number of criminal activities, police said.
