Despite a court order to locate and return a child in an inter-faith custody battle, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar (pic) maintained his earlier stand that police will not comply with it as there were two conflicting verdicts in the case.
The Inspector-General of Police said he will not act on the Ipoh court order instructing the police to reunite Prasana Diksa with her Hindu mother M. Indira Ghandi. Indira’s ex-husband, Muslim convert Muhammad Ridzuan Abdullah, had secured custody of the child from the Syariah court.
Khalid said that the matter is being looked into by Putrajaya and he wished not to comment further on the matter. "The fact remains that there are two conflicting verdicts. The matter is being looked into at the moment. I am not saying that police will not take action. I just wish not to comment on it at the moment," said Khalid in a press conference at a function at University Teknologi Mara in Shah Alam today.
Khalid stressed the same point even when pressed further by the media. "You guys are waiting for me to say something else? I wish not to comment further," said Khalid. Khalid was served with the court order directing police to locate and hand over the daughter of a kindergarten teacher entangled in an inter-faith child custody dispute four days ago.
Lawyer M. Kulasegaran representing Indira, said the High Court order was served on Khalid 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 last week.
Indira obtained the order two weeks ago 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 earlier said police will not act on orders from either the civil or syariah 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.