CHENNAI: In a dramatic development, a man arrested at Chennai airport on Sunday night, moments before he was to board a Delhi-bound flight, turned out to be a Sri Lankan druglord wanted in the island nation.
Based on a tip that a man linked to international drug cartels was trying to leave for Delhi from Chennai, the Tamil Nadu Q branch police nabbed the man who was later identified as Sri Lankan national Kimbula Ela Guna. The 45-year-old is also linked to the LTTE, police said.
Based on his confession, the central crime branch on Monday arrested Guna's son Kennedy alias Bumma, Dileepan, Vigneshwara Perumal and Prabhakaran. All the five are now at the Chengalpet sub-jail.
Inquiries revealed that Guna alias Gunasekaran was part of the 1999 attack on former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga in which she lost vision in the right eye.
The Q branch police, who have informed their counterparts about the arrests, now plan to question Guna and his son about their associates in Tamil Nadu and their plans.
Police said Guna and his associate Alaga Perumaga Sunil Gamini alias Fonseka, who arrested from a hideout in Bengaluru in October 2020, were involved in drug trafficking in many other countries including Sri Lanka. Fonseka, who investigators believe had close contacts with fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and some international drug traffickers, had been arrested by Q branch sleuths in 2003 under the Passport Act for entering Tamil Nadu coast through an illegal ferry. A court later remanded him in judicial custody.
After he was released from the prison in 2011 on bail, he stayed at an apartment complex in Chennai's Kelambakkam area. After procuring a fake Indian passport in his name using forged documents and a fake Aadhaar card, he remained in Chennai's suburbs shifting from one place to another. After his arrest in Bengaluru in October last year, police seized five fake identity cards, all of them having different names.
Police said Fonseka was involved in at least 15 murders in Sri Lanka, all of them allegedly committed on the instructions of Guna.