RAMESWARAM: A 30-year-old Sri Lankan police constable was arrested near Dhanushkodi in Ramanathapuram district on Saturday for illegally entering India on a fibreglass boat. Tamil Nadu police found that the cop, identified as Pradeep Kumarapandara of Moneragala district in Sri Lanka, is an accused in a narcotics theft case in Colombo.
According to Ramanathapuram officials, Kumarapandara joined the Sri Lankan police force in 2018. He worked at the Colombo port police station before being posted in the Colombo Crime Department (CCD). TN police found that he had been on guard duty at the CCD storeroom when a portion of illegal drugs seized from raids and stored in the room reportedly went missing. A few days later, Colombo police recovered 23kg of heroin from his residence and his elder brother was arrested on August 28.
With a case registered against him in Colombo, Kumarapandara was on the run. It is learnt that he travelled to Talaimannar in Sri Lanka, and with the help of a friend boarded a fibreglass boat to travel to India. He reached the shores of Dhanushkodi at around 10.30 pm on Friday. Local fishers who spotted the Sinhala-speaker wandering in the area in the early hours of Saturday grew suspicious and alerted the marine police, sources said.
Kumarapandara was detained by the marine police and later handed over to the Q-branch sleuths. He was then arrested, produced before a Rameswaram court and remanded. He is to be lodged at Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai, sources said.