Commits adding back license information got squashed into release commit

The following commits got squashed into the initial commit and the new master branch was force pushed to rewrite the repositories history:

• 7c378ac21fefe0ad196d49f1f7fb3915f9db5619 Added licence text to external included file: 7c378ac2
• 91e012526a58dda35962c6d70a8f60bf4c4c5e9f Update gradlew to add missing licence statement.: 91e01252

The reference for the old master branch before squashing is: 91e012526a58dda35962c6d70a8f60bf4c4c5e9f (91e01252 )

At this point this looks pretty much like a malicious attempt to hide violations of copyright and the corresponding license. Is there any other explanation?