Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) M Kulasegaran has urged the police to probe claims that M Indira Gandhi’s ex-husband is living freely in Malaysia despite an arrest warrant issued over a decade ago.
In response to a query from Malaysiakini, Kulasegaran (above), who was the lead counsel for Indira when her case first cropped up in 2009, said recent revelations on Riduan Abdullah supposedly enjoying government aid “must be immediately investigated” by the police.
He also called on the police to take prompt steps to enforce all existing court orders against Riduan, who was formerly known as K Pathmanathan.
“No mother should ever be separated from her daughter,” he said, in reference to how Riduan is said to have abducted his and Indira’s youngest daughter, Prasana Diksa, after a unilateral conversion to Islam when the child was just 11 months old.
Previously, Malaysiakini reported that checks on the Rahmah Necessities Aid (Sara) and Budi 95 platforms, using an IC number linked to Riduan, found that the account had fully utilised the one-off RM100 Sara cash aid and a portion of the 300-litre Budi95 fuel subsidy quota.
Indira’s current lawyer, Rajesh Nagarajan, had slammed the police for failing to fulfil the courts’ “clear and binding orders” for the recovery of Prasana and the arrest of Riduan.
Rajesh also trained his guns on the Attorney-General’s Chambers, claiming that its “silence and passivity” have effectively sanctioned the police’s dereliction of their duties while sending a chilling message that the enforcement of law is “optional”.
In 2019, Kulasegaran, who was then the human resources minister, assured that he was “doing things” behind the scenes to help Indira, who until today remains embroiled in a custodial battle for her child.
At the time, Kulasegaran said that since he had been appointed as a minister, he must “mind his business,” no matter how much he wished to help his former client.
Justice march
Earlier today, the Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat) announced a “justice march” to protest authorities’ perceived inaction in locating Prasana, with the event scheduled to take place on Nov 22 from the Sogo Shopping Complex to Bukit Aman.
The march, which is set to feature Indira handing over to the police a teddy bear that belonged to Prasana, is meant to symbolise “the failure of enforcement, erosion of institutional accountability, and the silent suffering of countless parents denied justice due to bureaucratic inaction.”
In 2009, Indira’s ex-husband unilaterally converted their three children to Islam without her consent and sought custody through the Syariah Court.
The following year, the Ipoh High Court granted Indira full custody. However, in 2014, the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court order compelling the IGP to recover Prasana.
The Federal Court, in 2016, put an end to the legal wrangle by ordering the police to arrest Riduan and reunite Prasana with her mother.
After receiving no news of her daughter’s whereabouts, Indira filed an RM100 million suit in 2020, in which she named former IGP Abdul Hamid Bador, the police, the Home Ministry, and the government as defendants.
In June last year, the High Court dismissed her suit after finding that Hamid and the police had sufficiently exercised their duties in executing the Federal Court’s mandamus order.
The Court of Appeal heard on Aug 11 this year that the police do not owe Indira a duty of care in the case involving the search for Riduan and Prasana.
While the Court of Appeal was initially scheduled to deliver its decision on the matter on Oct 30, case management has since been set for Nov 7, during which parties will provide their available dates for a new decision date to be fixed. - Mkini
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