President Mohamed Nasheed has formed a special committee to curb gang violence and gang related crimes in the Maldives.
The committee consists of National Security Advisor Ameen Faisal, Home Minister Hassan Afeef, Attorney General Abdulla Muiz, State Defence Minister Mohamed Muiz Adnan and Prosecutor General Ahmed Muiz.
The President’s Office said that the committee had their first meetings yesterday afternoon and had decided to establish a special task force to curb serious and organised crime.
The task force will be led by Maldives Police Service and will consist of officials from the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Services (DPRS), Attorney General’s Office, Ministry of Education, Courts of law, Prosecutor General’s Office, Maldives Customs Service, Ministry of Health and Family, Ministry of Human Resources Youth and Sports, Immigration Department and officials from the Local Government Authority.
The work of the special task force will be to secure the citizens of the country, isolate and arrest those who commit offences that disrupt the peace and harmony, to rehabilitate criminals and to offer opportunities for them to be back in society after they are reformed.
‘’This committee assures the citizens that we will constantly work to reinstate the peace in this country in national level,’’ the committee said in a statement via the president’s office. ‘’We will continuously try to gain attention and cooperation from the implementing agencies, businessman, NGOs, political parties and the public.’’
The committee said that in order to achieve its goal, all the institutions should corporate and work together.
This week the committee will meet the Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid, National Security Committee [241 committee] of the parliament, Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz and other judges at the Supreme Court.
Recently a ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Rasheed presented an amendment to the Clemency Act which requires upholding death sentences if upheld by the Supreme Court and later withdrew it for the Penal Code and Evidence Bill was not yet passed.
In 2008 Rasheed said 104 cases of assault were sent to Prosecutor General, increasing to 454 in 2009 and 423 cases in 2010.
More recently 21 year-old Ahusan Basheer was stabbed to death on Alikileygefaanu Magu.
On June 2008, the major gangs in Male’ gave a press conference at Dharubaaruge and declared ‘’peace’’ and vowed to work together.
President Nasheed should be held responsible for encouraging gang violence and the resulting deaths. His support for the gangs including helping gangs with bonding exercises against the advice of the police, contributed to the deaths and the security problems in the country. We need to get this guy out of office to save the country.
There is always the big talks, big hopes, we need action !! We need to clean our streets of these thugs ! I feel this is now like the Hindhi movies !!!!
This is a good step the president has taken. Its time for such a special task force to curb gang violence in the city. And I belive the task force should have a zero tolerance towards such gangs. But what is more important is that the people who get condemned for such horrible violence should be made to complete their sentences instead of been released after few months behind bars.
ooh the three muiz-keteers.
Thanks to Ali Waheed from DRP.
Why everyone look to point out the finger on someone else, rather blaming people. Why not we try, with our capacity in order to stop 'Violence' together as one union.
We the good people like you Mr President, for your good work bringing the Rule of Law to this country.
Indeed, we all have had enough troubles like we had Rule of Dictator and after that we had Rule of Judges and now we hope we will have Rule of Law in this country, Insha Allah
Press conferencde from gangs, wow sounds like one political party. The fact that they have formed a gang itself should be a reason why should all be put behind the bars and never let them come out of the prison. These people will never sort out themselves. We need harsh punishments for these gangs. _punishment by death should be one of them.
A committee a day keeps the opposition away?
Press conference by gangs was one of the most disgusting things that Gayoom's government did. It was shameful to see Deen and Dr. Aishath Shaham facilitating the press conference.
President Nasheed is no better, giving into gangs against the advice of the police. These politicians are disgusting.
These things cannot be stopped unless we implement Islamic Sharia. May Allah bless us all and save us from this wrath. Amen.
@John,you seem to be a fake islamist commenting in minivan.
anyway regarding what you said, in the Maldives we seem to have more a problem of criminals being let loose, without sentencing or even after sentencing.
So implementing Islamic Sharia won't make an iota of difference as again we will have the same problem, a guy given a death sentence would be roaming around the street. So first we need to find a way to keep the criminals off the street and make them serve the sentence they are given.
or and do drop this fake act John.
It is shocking to see "Gang Leaders" being accepted to give press conferences!
@ Ibrahim Yasir is right! These people accepting themselves as leaders speaking on behalf of gangs, is sufficient enough to prove them guilty of breaking law and they should be able to identify their members!
If these guys and their gangs are left as leaders and gangs, Rule of Law can never prevail!
Can we also have a press conference with the drug dealers to discuss cutting down of stocks supplied to the society.
qayyoom mismanaged the country at the latter part of his reign. anni & co rode piggy-back on a middle-class revolution and hoodwinked power players into the situation we r in now.
end result. simple regime change. one dictator for another. one money hungry junta of self-interested individuals for another bunch of greedy profiteers. the Maldivian people lack the awareness and the power to hold their governments accountable. but they do have the necessary clout to remove a government and hand it to another. hence democracy in its MDP-marketed form is NOT yet the solution.
Do you think just for once we could focus on punishing violent crime instead of taking the view that these naughty boys need rehabilitating. They are laughing at the prospect of being told to behave and if the y promise to be good they will be let out back into society. Take a look around the world and you will see that these thugs will offend and re-offend as many times as you rehabilitate them.
Get tough and make our streets safe, remove scum and street crime from our society, you can have a slogan too ... To serve and Protect, it's easy dho?
I believe the good people shall be those who keep values & principles.
And those who are badly affected during Gayyoom's regime cannot be counted as good people of this country.
But very unfortunately, the majority of the Authorities in this country belong to Gayyoom's regime, be it the Speaker of the Majlis & his deputy, be it the Governor of MMA, be it the National Security Committee head in the Majlis and so on.....
No doubt, this is the root-cause of every problem that we face today. Indeed, Gang Violence in the Maldives is a product of Gayyoom's regime because, we never heard of Gangs before Gayyoom's regime. We never saw killing people here, we never saw young children using dirty words before elders or in the society, we never had a time that we cannot go out with family & children for fear of a knife attack or filthy (dirty) words without any hesitation and so on
At last Good decision taken by president by forming a committee to control gang violence.
It is said that durig Abdulla Hameeds time, someone high up realised that there were too many committees at the then atolls ministry, so, they formed a committee to abolish unnecessary committees. Looks like we are heading down the same road again.