By Susitha Fernando

Colombo, Dec 16 (IANS): The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lankan police has taken over a probe into the mysterious violent attack on former national cricket administrator and businessman Dinesh Schaffter who died later.

After suffering from critical injuries, Dinesh, 52, died shortly before midnight on Thursday in the ICU of the National Hospital.

Hailing from a family of national cricket administrators, the leading businessman had left home in Colombo to meet a person to whom he had earlier lent a large sum of money and made several complaints for defaulting.

Hours later after his phone was not reachable, Schaffter's wife had alerted a worker and followed the signals of the mobile phone location.

Later an injured Schaffter was found tied up in the driving seat of his own car with a rope around his neck and left in the main cemetery of Colombo.

He was rushed to the hospital but died later.

According to hospital sources, the businessman died due to a cardiac arrest followed by the tragic incident.

The investigation conducted by the area police had been handed over to the CID and they are searching for a former cricket commentator and television sports anchor, against whom Schaffter had also made several complaints to the police, for questioning over the incident.

Dinesh is the son of Chandra Schaffter, a former first class cricketer in the 1950s and cricket administrator of the 1996 world cup winning team.

Chandra is also the founder of country's first Sri Lankan-owned life insurance company, Janashakthi.

Dinesh's brother Prakash, a first class cricketer, was in the national cricket administration and served as Sri Lanka Cricket's secretary.