Abduction attempt made on journalist foiled by police: backfires –one abductor dead (Lanka-e-News-24.Aug.2013,9.00PM) In a strange quirk of circumstances , the attempted abduction of Lanka professional media association President, Mandana Ismail, a senior journalist attached to the Sunday Leader by an unidentified group misfired because the police stormed into her house unexpectedly. Consequently one suspect died while a police officer sustained injuries, according to reports reaching Lanka e news. These abductors have entered the house of Ismail at Dickmans road at about 2.30 early morning . At that time , only Mandana’s parents and her child had been in the house , as her husband Romesh is out of the house. These suspects have first confined each member of the family into separate rooms and given the impression they have come for robbery. Though there are wealthy residents at Dickman’s road , these ‘robbers’ entering a journalist’s home for robbery is therefore stupid. All of them were wearing gloves. This group had threatened the daughter , Mandana and her mother by holding knives to their necks while also assaulting Mandana. Thereafter they have ransacked her files apparently search for a file they were looking for. They have spent about two hours examining a file. One of the marauders had then said, at about 4.30 a.m. , as a lot of time had already been spent , to expedite the action . When Mandana had questioned , ‘who are you all? Take anything and go away.’ Their answer to that was , they are hired to execute a contract. Subsequently when these criminal brutes covered Mandana’s face with a cloth and tried to abduct by holding a knife to her back , the police had arrived. The reason for the police to visit her house was a call made by her husband Romesh who is outside the house to the police emergency 119 , when nobody had answered his call made by him to his family, and therefore he had harbored suspicion. Romesh’s suspicions were heightened because Mandana had been receiving threatening calls for the last several days , and on the 22 nd , a carcass of a dead cat was found thrown into her house , and on the following day her vehicle tires were slit. In addition ,in the last Sunday Iridina a media coolie Keerthi Warnakulasuriya in the defence column had castigated her at length and called her as a traitor. Romesh was aware of the pattern in the past followed by the present criminals who are highest in the hierarchy where after fastening the label of traitor first , it is followed by assaulting , abducting or killing of journalists . He was hence obviously perturbed when his call received no response that night . The unexpected arrival of the police on the scene had caused panic among the criminal marauders who have shot at the police and tried to flee whereupon the police had retaliated resulting in one of the marauders who sustained injuries succumbing to the injuries after admission to hospital . In the struggle between the police and the criminal marauders , one police officer had got stabbed , and is now hospitalized. The remaining five suspects had been arrested, according to reports. A grenade had also been found on the ground which had dropped down from one of those arrested . The police had taken it into custody. (Photos attached below)