Male’, Maldives – Speaker of Parliament and former president, Mohamed Nasheed has held a meeting with Minister of Defence, Uza. Mariya Didi and MNDP top officials today.
The meeting was held today at the parliament building where Minister of Defense, Mariya Didi and Chief of Defense Force, Major General Abdulla Shamaal took part in. However the discussions of the meeting was not revealed by the parliament.
The meeting comes after Speaker of Parliament Nasheed stating that the “IndiaOut” campaign was being carried out by people of extremist ideology and that they were planning to change the banners being used for the online campaign to the flag of ISIS group.
This campaign started after accusations of armed Indian military personnel being stationed in Maldives and it’s calling to remove all such personal from the Maldives. In addition to this, the opposition has been accusing the current government of allowing India to build their military bases around the country. The main controversy began as the number of Indian pilots and crew who are stationed in Maldives to operate the two helicopters which the Indian government had donated to MNDF grew larger.
The first helicopter was gifted in 2010 and in 2011 when the current speaker of parliament, Mohamed Nasheed was president. Since the first one was brought to the Maldives, MNDF has been saying that they were training Maldivian pilots to fly the choppers which until now has not happened. MNDF has denied to give out any information regarding the number of Indian personnel in Maldives nor the amount being spent by the Maldivian tax payers money on these personnel stating that it would be a risk national security.
