The Crime Branch CID (CB-CID) on Monday took over the investigation into the recent death of suspected Sri Lankan gangster Maddumage Lasantha Chandana Perera alias Angoda Lokka in Coimbatore. The agency will probe his illegal stay in the country, alleged fabrication of documents and impersonation. and help he got during exile.
Director General of Police J.K. Tripathy transferred the investigation to CB-CID after reviewing reports of Coimbatore city police and 'Q' Branch, said sources.
K. Shankar, Inspector General of Police, CB-CID, said that a case has been registered to begin the investigation. The CB-CID team received case documents from the city police.
The local police and Q branch suspect that the fugitive had help from sympathisers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during his stay here for about two years.
A senior police officer, who is part of the investigation, said that the father of D. Sivakamasundari, a native of Madurai, who was arrested by the police on Sunday for helping Lokka, was an LTTE sympathiser.
The police found that Lokka managed to obtain fake Aadhaar cards in the name of Pradeep Singh in two addresses — one from West Bengal and another one from Madurai.
“Details emerged in the investigation indicated possible roles of LTTE sympathisers,” said the officer.
Amani Thanji, 27, a widow from Colombo who had visited Lokka at least three times in Coimbatore, had come to the city last on March 5 and she could not go back to Sri Lanka due to COVID-19 lockdown.
Her husband was killed in Sri Lanka in 2017 and Lokka's role is suspected behind the murder according to the police.
Thanji was admitted to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) as after her arrest on Sunday she had complications of a medical abortion. She was two months pregnant, according to the police. “The woman told us that she consumed abortion pills after the death of Lokka,” the officer said.
Sivakamasundari's friend S. Dyaneswaran, 32, of Erode, who was also arrested on Sunday, helped Lokka in finding houses in Coimbatore and other arrangements, according to the police.
Lokka stayed in an apartment at Saravanampatti in Coimbatore before moving to Cheran Ma Nagar in the city early this year.
The illegal stay of Lokka in Coimbatore came to light when the police verified an Aadhaar card copy which Sivakamasundari submitted at the Peelamedu police station in Coimbatore on July 4, a day after his death to complete post-mortem formalities.
As per the First Information Report, Thanji took Lokka to a private hospital around 9.30 p.m. on July 3 where he was declared brought dead. The body was later shifted to CMCH where it was autopsied. The FIR said that Sivakamasundari came to Coimbatore on Thanji's request and managed to take the body to Madurai for cremation after autopsy, by submitting fake documents to the police.
G. Stalin, Deputy Commissioner of Police (law and order), Coimbatore city, said that Lokka was not doing any specific work in Coimbatore.
“He had enough money with him. No weapon was found in his house,” he said.