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Fact Check
Claim: Social media posts claiming to show former IGP Deshabandu Thennakoon, who was recently granted bail after he was sent to remand custody, celebrating the 2025 Sinhala and Tamil New Year with his family at home.
Fact: These photographs are from an April 2024 Facebook post by Thennakoon.
Multiple Facebook users have recently shared photographs claiming to show former inspector general of police (IGP) Deshabandu Thennakoon, who was recently granted bail after he was sent to remand custody last month, celebrating the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, which fell on April 14, with his son and wife at home.
In one post, a user says in Sinhala, “All that whiskey for Avurudu”, referring to 1029 liquor bottles that were confiscated from Thennakoon’s house during a search warrant executed in March.
Similar posts can be found here and here.
From March 19, 2025, to April 10, 2025, Thennakoon was in prison after surrendering to the Matara Magistrate’s court as a suspect in the shooting incident in front of the W15 hotel in Weligama on December 31, 2023. After several weeks spent in Agunakolapalassa Prison and then Dumbara Prison, Thennakoon was granted bail by the Matara Magistrate’s Court on April 10, 2025.
Due to the high-profile nature of Thennakoon’s arrest and the seriousness of the crime associated with him, which led to the killing of a police officer associated with the Colombo Crimes Division, we decided to check whether there were recent photographs of him celebrating Avurudu at home.
We first did a reverse image search of the images and found that these photographs were posted by Thennakoon on his personal Facebook account on April 14, 2024. In this post with multiple photographs, he says, “Celebration of the 2024 Sinhala and Tamil New Year at home.”
In April 2025, despite social media users’ claims, Thennakoon had not posted anything related to Avurudu. We could not find any such updates on mainstream media either, confirming that the viral claim is false.
Social media posts claiming to show former IGP Deshabandu Thennakoon celebrating the 2025 Sinhala and Tamil New Year with his son and wife at home are actually from 2024.
Sources
Post on Deshabandu Thennakoon’s Facebook account, posted on April 14, 2024
Missing Context
