Daily NEWS Srilanka

Udaya Shantha Pathirana alias Ranale Samayan died of a shooting incident yesterday. He was dragged out from inside the prison bus and after making him stand on the footboard of the bus, was shot dead in a brutal manner. It is understood that even crackers were lit yesterday because of the death of Kaduwela Samayan.

He was lucky enough to escape gunshots aimed at him on the previous occasion at Kaduwela Courts premises on September 23rd in the year 2015;

Ranale Samayan happens to be an adopted child of a couple in the teaching profession attached to Ranala Kanishta Vidyalaya who had no offspring. After the O/L Samayan had said goodbye to his education and instead become addicted to marijuana (ganja) and drugs, squandering the wealth and selling the properties of the couple who cared for him as his parents, spending on his malpractices. He even went to the extent of selling Jasinghamulle properties and a house running into millions which the couple had earned with the sweat of their brow. Without stopping at that he forcibly grabbed the earnings of a shop which these parents owned. After the father who looked after him passed away, Samayan adopted an attitude of keeping his mother under his control and made companions with a clique of boys in the area and lived in a disgusting manner to his parents. But his mother did not want to leave him from her crutches.

Ranale Samayan once was responsible for a murder which he undertook on a contract basis for 5 lakhs and was caught and taken into custody by the police to be later released. However though he managed to get his freedom, he then turned into an underworld gangster as a hired killer and indulged in looting too. After entering into marriage and becoming a father of a child, he however cared less for neither the parents nor the child and went on to form a group of his own thus exerting his powers bringing everyone under his arms and scaring everybody in the area which he believed was the way to live. It is understood that the number of people he killed in the process were close upon 20. These murders had been committed either by him or by his accomplices. He was skillful in organising and directing crime while still under bars and in the year 2015 the first attempt on his life was carried out in the prison bus as a result of a revenge for having launched a plan of that type.

Given below is an interview given by Samayan sometime back (2015) to a newspaper. He explains there the reasons for a person like him to have come into society.

   No problem ... call Aruna.

   For having been with friends and for being headstrong ... won't listen to anybody no ... that's why.

   I don't want to be a gangster or an underworld guy. What I now want is to live by myself, on my own. But there's no room for that.

   I was born in Polonnaruwa. I came to know about it later.

   That's true. They were the people who brought me up.

   No one. Only I am there for myself.

   At Bomiriya.

   Father died when I was in the 5th. We had a lot of properties. Since only I and mother were there, those who were greedy for the properties created problems for us. When I went to talk about those things, people brushed me aside saying that I was an adopted chap.

   Relations kept both of us apart. Nobody came to help us.

   I got through the O/L also but it was when I was getting ready to do the A/L that problems started cropping up.

   Yes. I was very fond of Sinhalese and Maths.

   Problems in the village began to increase. As there was no one called relations, I got drawn towards friends. Those who were against us began to do so many things to chase me and mother from the village. I was assaulted several times. It was only after that that I fell into this state.

   2 or 3 years after father died, most people wanted to chase me away. Once, a letter was delivered home asking mother for 3 and a half lakhs. Everything at the background of this was wealth and assets. What that letter said was that if that money is not given, I would be killed. My mother got frightened about it. Even a complaint was made to Nawagamuwa Police about it. At that time I was in grade 7. The history of all this can be found from police records.

   At that time I had gradually got into the grip of associating friends. Though mother tried her best to rescue me from that environment I had lost interest about everything.

   No, no ... my mother treated me and looked after me in the best possible way. We had shops ... so we attended to those matters.

   Though I had love affairs ... my mentality was not prepared enough to think deeply about those things. It was in 2004 that I did my O/L and after that, most of the time I was away from home.

   In 2007.

   I was apprehended for being in the company of those who were keeping a gun in their possession. I was taken away like that and they poked a bomb saying that it was in my possession and so I was put inside. It was at that point that my life began to take a different turn.

   I was beaten up unmercifully for 3 months by the police. I then began to develop a deadly fear and even my mother came to my mind. My mother is limping even now because after coming to see me so many times she has had a fall and had suffered a problem in the leg. It was the bomb the police used on me that pushed me into this state. If not I wouldn't be in a place like this today.

   In 2009.

   Yes. Got married in 2014. I have a child.

   I won't let my child fall into the society that I had fallen into. I won't even let my child get in here ... because now I have only my mother, wife and child.

   Yes ... that'll definitely happen.

   Yes ... I also think so.

.  I have no connection. My comrades of course rendered their support for political activities.

   It was only when I was trying to make a drastic change in my life that once again I was drawn back into problems. I tried to go abroad with my wife and child and be myself. I was shot at in courts at a time when I was thinking of making a change. I was shot because I told not to sell drugs in Kaduwela. When I was trying to make a change, my boys are being killed.

   That speed was accelerated in my life by society. I haven't done all the things that I am branded with. Those who suffered because of me were those who pushed me into this state.

   I still have my home environment to live. I created trouble to those who created trouble to me. I am a boy from a respectable family. Even if I am not that, I must provide a respectable future for my child. I won't leave room for the things that happened to me ... to happen to my child.

(Information -- Airangi Edirisingha)

(Note of discussion :-- Bingun Menaka Gamage -- Lankadeepa)