India should come down hard on the present regime in the Maldives and ask President Mohammed Waheed Hassan to call for general election this year, senior Maldivian senior statesman Ibrahim ‘Ibra’ Ismail, has told the Times of India.
Ibra said India’s response to the coup in Maldives was cold and that the largest democracy in the world had shut its eyes on the human rights violations that were going on in his country.
“The protests against the military rule are on the rise. In the last 40 days, more than 650 people have been arrested compared to the 10-15 detained for hooliganism in the last three years of democratic rule,” he said.
Ibra, who led the first pro-democracy mass protest in 2004, which led to the formation of the first democratically-elected government in Maldives, admitted they didn’t see the coup coming until it was too late. “We should have been careful as the elements of dictatorship don’t go away too easily.”
