Two Maldives Police officers have been attacked by a gang from Hoarafushi, Haa Alifu atoll, Monday, state newspaper Haveeru reports. The officers were responding to reports of a fight, at around 7:15pm on Monday night, the paper says, citing Sergeant Nahid Hussein.“Our officers acted on information received via a phone call, and went to the house of the person we heard was about to be attacked,” said Sergeant Nahid. “The person was under our protection when a group of around 15 men came to the house and started making a commotion.
One of them attacked the officers and then they all fled the scene.”The newspaper goes on to say both the officers “had welts and bruises on their backs and faces” as a result of the beating. The paper says the alleged attacker, Ahmed Shameen, 23, of Jeans Villa, in Hoarafushi, is now in custody.
Police are quoted as saying he had a history of arrests for various criminal offences.Two foreign construction workers were injured in an attack by a Hoarafushi gang last Sunday. Eleven Hoarafushi residents attacked the two Indian and Bangladeshi workers with metal pipes and wooden planks, leaving them both with head injuries.
Four police officers also suffered minor injuries at the time. Haveeru reports eleven individuals who reportedly attacked the workers and police are now under arrest. They are between16 to 35 years of age.
