KUALA LUMPUR: The police did not expect Indira Gandhi’s former husband to leave the country with their daughter, according to former inspector-general of police Abdul Hamid Bador.
Testifying in the High Court here today, Hamid said the police team tracking Muhammad Riduan Abdullah’s whereabouts had no information pointing towards him fleeing abroad with Prasana Diksa.
He also denied that the police’s delay in issuing an Interpol notice had caused them to breach a court order issued on May 30, 2014 to recover Prasana from Riduan.
Riduan, formerly known as K Pathmanathan, fled with Prasana in 2009 when she was only 11 months old. He had converted her to Islam without Indira’s consent.
In 2016, the Federal Court ordered the IGP (then Khalid Abu Bakar) to arrest Riduan and retrieve Prasana.
Hamid said investigative work carried out by the police found that Riduan was in southern Thailand in 2019, after previous intelligence reports showed that he was hiding in Perak and Kelantan.
“My instruction to them was clear … that they had to intensify efforts to find and bring him back. I wasn’t playing with any political or religious sentiments, nor was I being dramatic.
“I sympathised with Indira, and I sent my officer to convince her that I was concerned about her plight and I sought to meet her in person,” he said when examined by senior federal counsel Andi Razalijaya A Dadi,
He also denied claims that the police did not do their best to track down Riduan and Prasana, stating that they had taken numerous measures to find them.
Hamid, who served as the IGP from May 2019 to May 2021, also defended the involvement of the Special Task Force on Organised Crime (Stafoc) team to find Riduan as its members have special expertise required for the task.
Indira’s lawyer, Rajesh Nagarajan, had earlier questioned the use of Stafoc as its jobscope was not related to the case.
In 2016, the Federal Court ordered the police to execute a warrant of committal on Riduan for contempt of court over his refusal to return Prasana to Indira, who was given full custody over their three children.
The apex court also remitted the case back to the Ipoh High Court for a judge to monitor compliance.
Kindergarten teacher Indira filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the IGP, the government, the police and the home ministry for their alleged failure to comply with the court order to arrest Riduan and return Prasana. -FMT
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