Arrest order: IGP has 48 hours to do his job

PUTRAJAYA - The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) must no longer abstain from executing a legal order to return a six-year old child to her Hindu mother, M. Indira Gandhi, the latter’s lawyers said after a Court of Appeal ruling today in her favour.

M. Kulasegaran said Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has two days to carry out the Ipoh High Court’s order to arrest the child’s Muslim convert father, Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah, who absconded with Prasana Diksa in 2009 and refused to give her up despite losing custody rights in the civil court.

“The IGP has 48 hours more to fulfill his public duties,” the lawyer told reporters here when met here.

Kulasegaran was referring to the time left before the Ipoh High Court hears a judicial review of the IGP’s actions this Friday.

If Indira is successful in her legal challenge this Friday, the High Court is expected to compel the IGP to enforce a recovery order and a warrant of arrest on Mohd Ridzuan.

The recovery order issued by the High Court directs the police to help track down and return Prasana to Indira, but the police have declined to do so, citing alleged conflicting court orders from the Shariah courts and civil courts.

But Kulasegaran said there is “no conflicting order” from the Shariah courts and civil courts on the directive for police to track down and return Prasana to the rightful parent, reiterating that “the IGP should just carry out his public service duty”.

Aston Paiva, another lawyer representing Indira, pointed out that there was only a recovery order from the Ipoh High Court, while the Shariah court did not issue a similar court order.

The Ipoh High Court had also “conclusively” found Mohd Ridzuan to be in contempt of its order to return the child to Indira.

“There’s nothing left to do, you must just enforce the order,” said Aston, who was present at the brief news conference, referring to the police.

Both Aston and Kulasegaran were speaking after the Court of Appeal struck out today Mohd Ridzuan’s appeal of the recovery order and committal order or the order to jail him until he returns Prasana.

Mohd Ridzuan has exhausted all legal avenues and failed in past attempts to appeal against the civil court’s 2010 custody order in favour of Indira.

Today, Mohd Ridzuan’s lawyer Anas Fauzi told the court that his client was now in Kota Baru, adding that he had not seen him since May 31 but was in contact with him.

After Mohd Ridzuan missed the Ipoh High Court’s June 6 deadline to return Prasana or face jail, he instead provided Indira’s lawyer with photographs of him and a tudung-wearing Prasana.

Besides the high-profile child custody tussle, Mohd Ridzuan has also appealed against the Ipoh High Court’s decision to quash his 2013 unilateral conversion of Prasana and her two siblings to Islam.

The Court of Appeal is set to hear three appeals against the quashing of the religious conversion on December 2.