IGP served court order to locate child in inter-faith custody battle
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) was yesterday served with a court order directing police to locate and hand over the daughter of a kindergarten teacher entangled in an inter-faith child custody dispute.
Lawyer M. Kulasegaran (pic), representing M. Indira Gandhi, said the High Court order was served on Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to instruct his men to locate Indira’s ex-husband Muhammad Ridzuan Abdullah in any part of the country and hand over the child, Prasana Diksa (Ummu Habibah), to the mother.
"This order speaks for itself and we hope the police will give effect to the court order immediately," Kulasegaran told The Malaysian Insider.
Kulasegaran said copies of the order would also be served on the High Court sheriff in Ipoh to locate Ridzuan.
"The officer in charge of the Ipoh police district and the chief police officer of Perak will also be given copies of the order," he added.
Indira obtained the order last week following Khalid's statement that minors in inter-faith child custody cases should be placed in childcare centres to be fair to both parents.
Khalid had also said police will not act on orders from either the civil or shariah court in such cases as police were “sandwiched” between two court systems.
On May 30, High Court judge Lee Swee Seng found Ridzuan guilty of contempt and gave him one week to hand over their daughter to Indira, or face imprisonment.
Ridzuan defied the order when he failed to turn up in Ipoh upon expiry of the deadline to hand over the child.
Indira had also applied for a recovery order to compel police to get Prasana from Ridzuan, who is said to be in Kota Baru, Kelantan.
Indira had filed contempt proceedings last year against Ridzuan, who was previously known as K. Patmanathan, for refusing to hand over their daughter.
In 2010, the High Court granted custody of their three children – Tevi Darsiny, 16, Karan Dinish, 15, and Prasana, 3 – to Indira.
Ridzuan has held on to Prasana since April 2009. The girl was 11 months old at the time.
Ridzuan had, in 2009, obtained custody of the three children from the Shariah High Court after he unilaterally converted them.
However, in July last year, judge Lee quashed the certificates of conversion as unconstitutional.
In a similar case in Seremban, clerk S. Deepa obtained a recovery order on her son from the High Court last month, but police refused to locate the boy despite a sealed copy of the document having been handed to Bukit Aman.
Her son, V. Mithran, was abducted by her ex-husband Izwan Abdullah from her home in Jelebu on April 9.
The court had two days earlier granted custody of the couple's two children (Mithran and Sharmila) to Deepa on the grounds that the marriage had been solemnised under civil law.
Deepa's lawyers are expected to file contempt proceedings against Izwan next week. – June 19, 2014.
