Following reports of the Maldivian government’s decision to return the Dhruv helicopter gifted by India, saying it wanted a Dornier instead, India has called the country out on its ‘duplicitous’ nature.

Last week, reports surfaced that the Maldives has decided to return India’s gift after two years, saying that it ‘wanted a Dornier maritime surveillance aircraft instead of the Dhruv Advance Light Helicopter (ALH) gifted by India’. While two helicopters have been gifted, the one in question here was gifted in April 2016,and operates from the southernmost Addu City.

Times of India reports that sources in India describe Maldives’ move as ‘duplicitous,’ adding that ‘the talk about the need for a Dornier aircraft was nothing but a fig leaf to candy-coat [Maldives’] decision’.  

Citing top officials from South Block, it said that a letter of exchange (LoE) for the deployment of a Dornier was sent to the Maldivian authorities in 2016, but that “they have chosen to sit over it for two years”.

While the second helicopter gifted by India operates in Laamu atoll, the letter of exchange is to expire this month, with India offering to renew it earlier in January. Noting that Maldives is yet to respond to this, Times of India- highlighting that this is where China is said to be considering building a port- said that “this effectively means [Maldives] wants both choppers out”.

Times of India noted that the Laamu atoll location is significant as it “sits at the entrance to the one-and-a-half-degree channel, a major international shipping passage passing through the Maldives”.

Furthermore, TOI’s source said that Maldives’ “complete opacity and lack of sincerity” has “seriously undermined the traditional and consultation-based relationship built over the past five decades”.

The Maldives’ decision comes on the heels of Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s three-day visit to the country. During this visit the General met with a number of senior government officials including the defence minister, where both parties discussed the possibility of joint patrolling Maldives’ exclusive economic zone, which has since been described as a ‘redline’ for India.

Relations between India and Maldives have been especially sour since it called on the island nation to implement a court order to release nine unfairly detained prisoners, which President Yameen had described as an attempted “judicial coup”.

India continued the call to implement the “ruling issued by the Supreme Court’s full bench” in a message released by its External Affairs Ministry, welcoming the lift of the state of emergency.

In a statement released on February 22, the Maldivian government snapped at India, saying that public statements “that ignore facts and ground realities are not helpful".