Deadline passes, Muslim convert fails to return daughter to Hindu ex-wife
The Malay Mail Online – 21 hours agoRELATED CONTENT
- File photo of M. Indira Gandhi (left) with her lawyer M. Kulasegaran. Kulasegaran …
KUALA LUMPUR, June 6 — Muslim convert Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah defied a High Court order to return his six-year-old daughter to her Hindu mother, M. Indira Gandhi by 12pm today, putting him at risk of jail for contempt of court.
The father was supposed to hand over the girl to Indira at the High Court in Ipoh, Perak at noon today.
“She’s going to lodge a police report now to take action,” M. Kulasegaran, lawyer for Indira, told The Malay Mail Online when contacted.
Kulasegaran said Mohd Ridzuan’s lawyer had informed him that his client believed that it was too soon to decide on giving the child back to his ex-wife.
“The court granted the order last Friday saying that if he doesn’t return the child by 12 o’clock today, he has to be arrested,” he added.
Indira has yet to reply to The Malay Mail Online’s attempts to contact her for comment.
Last Friday, Judicial Commissioner Lee Swee Seng decided that Mohd Ridzuan was guilty of contempt of court when he failed to comply with a 2010 ruling granting custody of Prasana Diksa to Indira, according to lawyer New Sin Yew.
At the time, Mohd Ridzuan had made off with the then one-year-old, later relying on a ruling by the Shariah Court, granting him custody of the couple’s three children.
Kulasegaran said today that since the High Court had granted custody to Indira four years ago, “there’s no reason why he can’t return the child”.
According to New last Friday, the High Court ordered Mohd Ridzuan to pay RM15,000 and RM5,000 to Indira for her legal costs in applying for the contempt of court order and recovery order respectively.
On April 3, 2009, Mohd Ridzuan, born K. Pathmanathan, left the house with one-year-old Prasana and the birth certificates of the couple’s three children, later using the birth documents to convert the trio to Islam.
On July 25 last year, the Ipoh High Court annulled the conversion certificates of five-year-old Prasana and her siblings Tevi Darsiny and Karan Dinish — aged 16 and 15, declaring it unconstitutional to force a minor to embrace a different faith without the consent of both parents.
But Mohd Ridzuan failed to turn up in court with Prasana and return her to Indira despite the Ipoh High Court’s orders.
Indira’s case is one in a series of high-profile tussles over child custody and child conversion to Islam cases.
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