Pro-Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna activists (some of them were members of Inter University Students' Federation) are accused of his murder.
[2] Although he was leftist, he vehemently opposed Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Marxist-Leninist political party which had almost total control over the students' unions in Sri Lanka.
[3] In a report named Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka: The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurgencies of 1971 and 1987-1989, Tisaranee Gunasekara describes Pathirana as a "radical student activist, with impeccable anti-United National Party/anti-systemic credentials".
This was interrupted by a group of pilgrims (as it was the full moon poya day) It saved the life of Somasiri.
However in 1996, six years after the failed insurrection, General Secretary Tilvin Silva denied that Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna was involved in the Daya Pathirana murder.