Investigations into the assassination attempt on Minister Maithripala Sirisena by a LTTE suicide bomber at Boralesgamuwa last week took a new turn with the arrest of a soldier in Vavuniya under whose name the mobile phone used by the suicide cadre had been registered.

Invstigators said the soldier’s national identity card number had been used to buy the Sim card used on the suicide bomber’s mobile phone. According to Police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera LTTE cadres have used 20 such forged identity cards to buy Sim cards and investigations are now on to trace the 20 people whose numbers had been used by others to buy Sim cards.

Investigations also revealed the last call to her mobile was made through a telephone tower in the Cinnamon Gardens area and she had received a total 26 calls to her mobile on that particular day.

Investigators believed the person who made the last call to her mobile phone was responsible for directing her on the failed suicide mission. Most of the calls received on her mobile phone had originated from Wellawatte

Police, Army and the STF launched a joint search operation in the Wellawatte area on Sunday after positive information received that she had lived in the Wellawatte area under a Sinhala name.Investigators wanted to find out the exact place where she lived in Wellawatte and her acquaintances there.