PETALING JAYA, Nov 21 — Hindu mother M. Indira Gandhi will be initiating a civil suit against the Inspector General of Police (IGP) for failing to comply with a mandamus order issued by the Federal Court to arrest her Muslim convert ex-husband who has refused to hand custody of the couple’s youngest child back to her.
Her lawyer M. Kulasegaran said that he will be filing the suit against the IGP’s office after the Federal Court delivers its judgement on Indira’s application to declare her children’s unilateral conversion to Islam by her ex-husband null and void.
Indira has been waiting for a judgement from the apex court for almost a year now, ever since it concluded hearing of her case in November 2016.
Former IGP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar previously claimed there were contradicting orders from the Shariah Court and the civil courts as reason for his refusal to carry out the mandamus order to arrest Muhammad Riduan Abdullah issued by the High Court in Ipoh and subsequently upheld by the Federal Court last year.
But Kulasegaran insisted the IGP “lied” about there being two orders.
“There were never two orders. The only contradictions were relating to the custody of the children. The orders to retrieve the youngest child and to arrest the ex-husband were only issued at the civil court. He has lied to the whole nation,” Kulasegaran, who is also Ipoh Barat MP, said.
“The process is ongoing to sue him,” the DAP man added.
He was speaking at the sidelines of the screening of Diary for Prasana, a short documentary by activist Norhayati Kaprawi highlighting Indira’s eight-year legal struggle against the unilateral conversion of her three children to Islam and also her bid to gain custody of them.
Indira has not seen her youngest child, Prasana Diksa, in more than seven years since her husband took the girl away when she was just 11 months old.
Her two older children are now with her, but still face the battle to declare their conversion by their father null and void, though both are now above 18 years old.
Their conversion certificates were quashed as null and void by the Ipoh High Court, but the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2015.
