BATU CAVES, Jan 24 ― MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said today he has met with Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali and shared his party’s views on how to tackle the problem of unilateral conversion of children to Islam that has led to acrimonious race relations.
Dr Subramaniam, who is also part of the five-person committee looking into the matter, said that aside from MIC, he had also collected views from Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties, MCA and Gerakan.
“We explained to him the need for a holistic solution, which cannot be made unless we amend some laws in the country. All of us have agreed that there is a need for amendments of the laws, so we will be taking a look at which of the laws we can amend, to give holistic, implementable solutions, for what we are discussing,” he told reporters after officiating Thaipusam celebrations here.
He added that everyone involved have so far shown to be on the same page on the need for amendments.
“Everybody is on the same page, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, our committee ,and the AG, I believe we will be able to come to a permanent solution to this problem,” he said.
Renewed calls for revised legislation on the matter of unilateral conversion of children, particularly to Islam, came following conflicting decisions between the Shariah and civil Court in the case of Ipoh kindergarten teacher M. Indira Gandhi.
The Court of Appeal had last month reversed a lower court’s order that had quashed the unilateral conversion of the Hindu woman’s three children to Islam by her Muslim ex-spouse.
Indira’s ex-husband, Muhammad Riduan Abdullah (formerly known as K. Pathmanathan), had in 2009 converted the couple’s three children — then aged 12 years old, 11 years old, and 11 months old — to Islam without their presence or Indira’s knowledge, just six days before he obtained a custody order for all three in the Shariah court on April 8, 2009.
Muhammad Riduan also took away the youngest child Prasana Diksa in 2009 — now aged seven — and kept her from Indira since then, despite the latter winning custody of all three children in the civil courts.
