Public tip-offs indicate Muhammad Riduan Abdullah is likely in southern Thailand, said a volunteer group tracking M Indira Gandhi’s former husband, who has ignored a court order to return his youngest daughter to the former kindergarten teacher.
Arun Dorasamy of the Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat) said these tip-offs came after it held its first press conference on Saturday, where it announced an RM10,000 reward for anyone with information leading to Muslim convert Riduan’s arrest.
“We received a lot of calls, text messages and WhatsApp from the public, especially from mothers who want to help Indira.
“Our volunteer investigating team filters all the information received. Of what we have received so far, some photos that were sent through WhatsApp were of relevance to what could possibly be Riduan’s current whereabouts in southern Thailand,” he told The Malaysian Insight.
Riduan, whose original name was K Patmanathan, took 11-month-old Prasana Diksa away from Indira, his then-wife, in 2009 to convert the child and two older children to Islam without their mother’s consent.
The older children have remained with Indira and are raised as Hindus but Prasana has been missing since then. The child is now about 11 years old.
This is despite court orders to the police to arrest Riduan and find Prasana in the course of Indira’s 10-year legal battle for custody and to quash the unilateral conversions of her children to Islam.
Arun added that the people who sent Ingat the photos are the ones claiming Riduan is in southern Thailand while others sent messages with claims that he had crossed the border without proper documentation.
Ingat received two sets of photographs, both allegedly showing Riduan in southern Thailand, but only disclosed one set to The Malaysian Insight.
Arun declined to release the other set of pictures, saying they are waiting to hand those to the police.
“We are ready to work with the police, however, we also feel the police are not really interested in this case.
“Police seem to able to find very quickly those who insult religions, serial criminals and even the assailant who attacked a woman in an MRT station lift, but this man who appears to have left the country by sneaking across the northern border and cannot be found for the last 10 years.”
No information was received on Prasana, however, and Arun said this is probably because few people know what she looks like now.
On the reward, he said several parties have expressed intent to donate to the fund and he expects the sum to go past RM50,000.
Ingat was formed a few months ago by Malaysian Hindu Sangam and other Hindu organisations to help Indira locate her former husband and child.
At Saturday’s press conference, Arun said Prasana’s original MyKid number had not been found in any passport and they are not sure if the child is still in the country.
Indira said a check with the Education Ministry revealed that Prasana is not registered in any Malaysian school with her original MyKid number.
Riduan’s passport, meanwhile, had expired and was never renewed.
Indira lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission last Friday alleging that former home minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the Home Ministry and National Registration Department colluded to change Prasana’s MyKid number to avoid detection by the police or herself.
Indira’s legal battle for her children has been fought in both the shariah and civil courts.
Riduan in 2014 was ordered by the Ipoh High Court to return Prasana but failed to do so, leading to a mandamus order by the court compelling the inspector-general of police to arrest him.
It was challenged by the government but then restored by the Federal Court in 2016.
In January last year, the civil Federal Court in a landmark decision nullified the conversion of Indira’s children to Islam by her ex-husband, and also declared unilateral conversions of children by one parent to be unlawful.
Following the Federal Court’s decision, Inspector-General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun asked the public for help to provide information to locate Riduan and Prasana. – TMI