Additional reporting by Daniel Bosley
Staff members from Maafushi’s Summer Villa guest house were caught on camera yesterday entering a rival establishment and assaulting a member of staff.
The owners of Summer Villa guest house were seen to barge into Kaani Village guest house after a disagreement regarding a picnic island to which the former establishment owns the booking rights.
Summer Villa’s Sales and Marketing Manager Mohamed Nabeeh told Minivan News that the incident caught on camera at Kaani Village followed an assault on him which was edited from the leaked footage.
Nabeeh said that he was the man who appears without a shirt in the video, explaining that it had been torn during the attack on him.
The CCTV footage shows a group of four men forcing themselves into the Kaani Village lobby and dragging out a man behind the reception.
Police have confirmed that an investigation into the matter is underway.
Attempting to explain the feud, Nabeeh said that the picnic island was fully booked but that Kaani Village threatened them saying that “they would not let us do our business” unless permission was granted.
“With in a few minutes Kaani Village management was at Summer Villa already smashing the belongings threatening and being violent and creating a commotion in front of all our guests,” alleged Nabeeh.
An anonymous source was quoted in local news outlet CNM as saying that Kaani Village was given the permission to take their guests to the island before later being revoked by Summer Villa, sparking the disagreement.
Minivan News was unable to obtain a response from numbers publicly listed for Kaani Village.
Nabeeh also stated that despite the commotion, he went to Kaani Village on their staff’s request to resolve the issue at which point he was assaulted and “badly injured”.
While expressing disappointment over the fact that Summer Villa does not have video evidence to show Kaani Village management attacking the guest house, Nabeeh stated “we couldn’t control from our side, because they got me injured badly for no reason first”.
Nabeeh provided Minivan News with photos that allegedly show the harm and damage caused by the Kaani Village management to their staff and property.
Maafushi, in Kaafu Atoll, has become synonymous with the country’s burgeoning guest house tourism industry, with the island hosting the highest number of guest houses outside of Malé City.
Related to this story
Guest House Association established by Maafushi businessmen