[1] Major General (Rtd) Karunasekara is also the first Commandant of the National Defence College, Sri Lanka.

[3] In addition, he was appointed the commander of the Sri Lankan contingent of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) when first deployed in 2004.

Karunasekara was appointed Commander of Security Forces Headquarters- Kilinochchi on 18 October 2015; he was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army on 22 July 2017, after the promotion of Mahesh Senanayake to Army Commander earlier the same month left the position vacant.

[5] As commandant of the Sri Lankan contingent of MINUSTAH since 2004, Karunasekara has been at the center of the child sexual abuse scandal that troops and officers under his command have been implicated in[4][6] On 5 April 2018, he was arrested by the Sri Lanka Police Criminal Investigation Department on charges of aiding and abetting the abduction and assault on The Nation journalist Keith Noyahr in 2008.

[7][8][9] Karunasekara was accused of being part of a group of military intelligence operatives that functioned under the direction of the Mahinda Rajapakse government between 2006 and 2010.