Police have opened an investigation into an incident involving a 17 year-old girl who was held down and had her eyes glued shut on the island of Maduvvari in Raa Atoll.
While the Maldives Police Service has confirmed the incident occurred, it was not supplying further details on the case.
However the island council of confirmed to local media that the girl was found with her eyes sealed with a substance believed to be a strong adhesive at about 8:45pm last night. According to reports, the council said the girl was found abandoned on an uninhabited part of the island.
The council also confirmed that the 17 year-old was unconscious when she was found. She was taken to the island health centre on discovery.
When interviewed by the press, the girl’s family alleged that a group of islanders were responsible for incident, which had left her eyes potentially seriously injured.
Doctors were not able to ascertain the extent of the injuries to her eyes because she was unable to open them, her family told local media.
The girl’s family claimed that the teenager was snatched by an unidentified group while she was walking along the street, and was taken to an uninhabited house in the island.
Once inside, one of her abductors was said to have hit her over the head with a wooden stick. She was then allegedly held down and glue was put in her eyes.
Maduvvari Council President Hussain Shiham told local media that once she had regained consciousness the girl had claimed she was attacked “by a man with long hair, and that he would have her teeth marks on his hand. But she couldn’t tell what he looked like.”
The victim was first taken to Ungoofaaru Hospital in Raa Atoll and later transferred to Indira Gandi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in Male’.
Similar incidents were reported to have happened on the same island in 2005.