By -Shantha wijesooriya
A young man residing on Mahindrarama Road, Ratmalana was murdered on 30  April night by strangling his neck and stabbing him with sharp weapons.

The young man was chopped and killed in Huludagoda, Mount Lavinia Division. An officer of the Mount Lavinia Crime Branch told us that the young man had gone to the area to buy a pack of ice crystal methamphetamine. The deceased was a 23-year-old youth named Kavinda Gayashan Ranawaka. His body was mutilated due to extensive stab injuries with sharp weapons, so the coffin was completely closed.

Ranawaka’s mother told us that the forensic medical report says that his throat was broken into three places due to strangulation and died due to serious damage to his spinal cord. Three suspects have already been arrested in connection with this murder incident and several more are to be arrested, Mount Lavinia Crime Branch OIC I.P. Ranaweera told her. On April 30 at around 9.30 pm, he had gone to a friend’s house and later that night, he went to a night club with that friend and bought two kottu, gave one to the friend and sent him home, Kavinda’s mother told us. The police had questioned the young man, obtained a statement and released him.

Police say Ranawaka was unemployed at the time of his murder and was addicted to ice and had no connection to theft or crime. Ranawaka had worked in Malaysia for a while before returning to Sri Lanka and was hoping to go to Italy, Ranawaka’s mother said. He is the eldest in the family with a younger brother. While the brother was studying for his A-levels, his mother worked in a commercial advertising agency and supported them both. Ranawaka’s mother told us that their father abandoned them when they were young.

Although Ranawaka’s murder was widely publicized on social media as the work of the underworld, when we asked Mt. Lavinia Crime Branch I.P. Ranaweera, said that he was not killed by the underworld, but over a personal dispute. When we asked Ranawaka’s mother and relatives about the killers, they refused to talk to us, saying that revealing their identities would create unnecessary problems.

The police and the underworld are killing the public in competition, and the leaders of the National People’s Power Government say that such killings are not a problem for national security. If protecting the working-class and oppressed public is not national security, then national security will only become a problem if the rich, their property, and the MPs and ministers of the NPA government, who are the representatives of the rich, are harmed or endangered.

Under the National People’s Power government, which came to end the 76-year capitalist curse, organized crime gangs continue to hack and shoot people inside the police station and on the streets. Dan Priyasad, who was planning to contest for the Kolonnawa Municipal Council from the Pohottu party, was recently murdered by an organized underworld group. Dan is a Sinhala chauvinist like a capitalist servant. But killing him is not something that can be approved or rejoiced about. The same cynics who killed Dan will use that opportunity to destroy us tomorrow. Therefore, Dan’s murder cannot be approved and it is a question of democracy. The government’s cabinet spokesman approved the murder in body language as well as in words during the press conference held recently. The government initially used military intelligence officers to incite the police against school development officers and attacked the police officers. But it was exposed right away. While this wave of killings is currently putting the government in a crisis, there is a risk that the government will use the same underworld methods in the future to suppress future protests against the government and kill the leaders leading those protests.