Criminal gangs often access embarrassing or demeaning images of their victims and publicise them through social media, police spokesman DIG Nihal Thalduwa said.He said that following the assassination of Surendra Wasantha Perera, alias Club Wasantha, images of his bloodied body in the mortuary were released on social media platforms. “This was probably done initially by social media accounts that are linked with those who carried out the attack. As civilised individuals, we should not share such images with friends and family,” he said.

One of the key objectives of organised criminal gangs is to protect the gunmen, given that there are not many people with experience in handling firearms, the police spokesman said.

“These gangs can always find people who can act as lookouts, but marksmen are harder to find. Those who carried out the assassination of Club Wasantha knew how to handle firearms, but I can’t confirm that they were ex-members of security forces,” he said.

DIG Thalduwa added that the police do not know whether the two gunmen have left the country via a fishing vessel.

“This is an island and each day hundreds of boats leave its shores for fishing. However, 10 police teams are still investigating the incident and there are a few more people that need to be arrested.”

The police spokesman said Saman Perera, leader of the ‘Ape Jana Bala Party’ and four other persons were killed in Beliatta in January this year. The police managed to identify the gunman at an initial stage.

“However, he still managed to leave the country. Lankan organised criminal gangs have links with similar groups elsewhere in the world. Our gangs have links with South Asian, Central Asian and even European gangs. So, forging a passport, illegal border crossings, etc., have become easy for them because of their ties with the regional criminal network. Even Interpol takes some time to find these people.”

DIG Thalduwa said he believes that when someone attached to an organised criminal syndicate is arrested and presented before courts, such a person must be kept in remand custody until the case is heard. If a suspect is granted bail, the Sri Lankan police does not have the capacity to monitor his or her activities throughout the day.

Meanwhile, DIG Deepthi Hettiarachchi, the Deputy Commander of the Police Special Task Force (STF) said they have been entrusted with eradicating organised crime, drugs and the use of illegal firearms. They have 75 camps around the country, he said. In the past two years they have confiscated over 1,000 illegal firearms.

Commenting on the murder of Club Wasantha, the STF DIG said that crime scene management was badly done. A large number of people were allowed to come in although civilians should have been blocked from accessing the crime scene. This could, in fact, have destroyed much of the evidence, he added.

“There was no secrecy, everyone was given access to the crime scene as well as evidence. The criminals almost had live updates of what the police were going to do. Our plan was exposed, allowing them to take counter steps to evade,” he said.