Indira Gandhi seeks to meet Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to resolve the 12-year impasse in her quest to reunite with her daughter caught in a bitter interfaith custodial battle with her Muslim convert ex-husband.
Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat) today revealed that they have written a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on May 26 to try to arrange the meeting involving not just the premier but also the home minister and the inspector-general of police (IGP).
The NGO’s chairperson Arun Doraisamy contended that they are forced to this course of action due to the alleged inaction of the police to enforce the court order for the authorities to locate Indira’s daughter Prasana Diksa.
Prasana was an infant aged 11 months old when her father Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, previously named K Pathmanathan, reportedly took her away in 2009 after converting to Islam.
Riduan and Indira were later engaged in a tightly-watched interfaith custody battle after he unilaterally converted Prasana and their two other children to Islam.
In 2014, the Ipoh High Court ordered the police to retrieve Prasana from her father. In 2016, the Federal Court ordered the IGP to arrest Riduan.
In 2018, the Federal Court unanimously ruled that unilateral conversions of children were unlawful as such decisions need permission from both parents. The apex court also issued an arrest warrant for Riduan, who is alleged to have fled overseas with Prasana.
At present before the Kuala Lumpur High Court, Indira has a separate civil action against the police and government over their alleged failure to abide by the court order to track down and reunite Prasana with the kindergarten teacher.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court has fixed July 16 to decide whether to allow the police and government to strike out Indira’s lawsuit.
During an online press conference streamed to Facebook, Arun contended that the authorities’ alleged inaction over the issue has led to Indira seeking to escalate the matter to the premier’s attention and seek his help to resolve the matter once and for all.
“We have written a letter to the prime minister and ‘CC’ (send carbon copy of email) to KDN (Home Ministry) seeking a meeting because in the past we have relentlessly tried to get the attention of the IGP and PDRM (police) to work and cooperate with us to retrieve and repatriate Prasana.
“We wrote the letter on May 26 and we will pursue that vigorously as we need to meet the prime minister in the presence of KDN and IGP. The matter has been dragging on for way too long.
“We already have the Federal Court order but we are still not getting cooperation from PDRM,” Arun contended as Indira looked on during the online press conference.
The NGO chairperson claimed that they had to resort to meeting the prime minister as when they shared information on the whereabouts of Riduan and Prasana, the police allegedly instead investigated the source of the information rather than using the information to locate the missing father-daughter duo.
“Most of the time, they (police) wanted us to share intelligence (on Prasana’s whereabouts), and the one time we shared, they instead went after the people that gave the intel (to Ingat), so we stopped (sharing information with the police).
“As a civilian group, what choice do we have? The authorities are not helping,” Arun claimed.
He explained that they are seeking the assurance from the prime minister on the authorities’ efforts to locate Prasana, whom he claimed is not with Riduan at the moment but with an unnamed third party.
In regards to an update on Indira’s initial legal action before the Ipoh High Court over the matter, Arun said that the authorities have until June 30 to update over the status of their efforts to enforce the said court’s order to recover Prasana.
He added that in regards to Indira’s related “Justice Walk” to Putrajaya, which has been postponed several times since last year, Ingat is looking at holding it between August or September this year.
Arun said that the walk could not be conducted previously due to the numerous iterations of the movement control order in force to combat the spread of Covid-19 in Malaysia. - Mkini
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