Mother seeks police's help to reunite with three children

 

A 34-year-old mother has lodged a police report to seek the return of her three children, allegedly held by a woman preacher attached to an NGO for Muslim converts in Tasek Gelugor, Penang.

When contacted, Seberang Perai Utara district police chief Mohd Radzi Ahmad confirmed receiving the report lodged by Loh Siew Hong on Saturday.

"Police are in the process of collecting further information because we need to backtrack to quite some time," Radzi told Malaysiakini.

Loh in her police report said she had been separated from her husband since March 2019 and was subsequently estranged from her children - a pair of 14-year-old twins and a 10-year-old.

After the couple's divorce, Loh said the High Court in Kuala Lumpur had in March last year granted her sole custody to the three children and she spent nine months in a futile search before turning to the police at Bukit Aman.

"On Jan 10, 2022, I received (a message) on Facebook Messenger from an account belonging to a woman (name withheld).

"I saw the message on Jan 19 and immediately tried to find the woman's contact on Google, and I sent her a WhatsApp message asking about my children.

"The woman admitted that she has my children and sent me their photos.

"Since that day I have asked her to return my children but she refused and kept giving illogical excuses. She also did not allow me to speak to my children," she said in her report.

Loh added that she then went to a private residential tahfiz school in Tasek Gelugor on Feb 11 after being alerted that her children were staying there, only to be informed by another student that they had been moved out just the day before.

Further calls to the woman who initially messaged Loh were left unanswered but Loh said the woman had called with instructions for her to travel to Perlis alone on Feb 12, if she wished to see her children.

"I am lodging this police report to seek urgent assistance to return my children to me, according to a court order dated March 24, 2021," she said.

Malaysiakini sighted the court order which, among others, stated that police should give all necessary and reasonable help by using reasonable force (if needed) against the respondent or any other parties to remove the children into the sole care and custody of the petitioner.

Denied contact with her children 

Meanwhile, Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) P Ramasamy revealed that Loh was previously treated in a shelter home for domestic abuse survivors and upon release discovered she had been denied contact with her three children.

Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) P Ramasamy

"When she contacted her former husband’s mother, the whereabouts of the children were not divulged.

"Later, a person called her to inform that her children were in the care of the religious authorities in Perlis," Ramasamy said.

"Since her children are Hindus, Loh does not rule out the possibility that her husband might have converted them to Islam before placing them in care of the Islamic religious authorities in Perlis.

"This seems to be a repeat of what happened to the children of Indira Gandhi after she divorced her husband who converted to Islam," he said.

Ramasamy said while it remains unclear whether Loh's children had been unilaterally converted, police investigations should reveal their whereabouts.

Malaysiakini has contacted Loh for further comments. - Mkini