COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A top counterintelligence police officer was shot and killed by two gunmen today, police said.
Police Superintendent Terrence Perera, the head of an anti-subversion department, was ambushed on the way to his office by two men on a motorcycle, 6 miles outside the capital of Colombo, they said.
The attack took place only 200 yards from Perera's residence at about 8:45 a.m. and the gunmen fired six shots at Perera, inflicting two fatal chest wounds, they said.
Perera was taken to Sri Jaywardanapura General Hospital, in the new administrative capital, and pronounced dead on arrival, they said.
Police, who immediately set up road blocks, arrested two suspects, officials said.
They said they suspected that the outlawed Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna was responsible for the killing.
Police rounded up 10 people who are being questioned.
A number of murder attempts and attacks have taken place in the island nation in the past two weeks in a new wave of crime against ruling party officials, mostly in the south.
Tuesday, members of the outlawed Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna were found guilty of involvement in the shooting of Ariya Rekawa, the mayor of Kurunegala, in central Sri Lanka, about 35 miles north of Colombo.
