Indira Gandhi files application to compel IGP to arrest ex-hubby

IPOH: Kindergarten teacher M. Indira Gandhi has filed an application seeking a mandamus order to compel Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to obey the High Court here and arrest her Muslim convert ex-husband and find her youngest child.

On May 30, Justice Lee Swee Seng issued a warrant of arrest against Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah for contempt of court after he repeatedly failed to hand over six-year-old Prasana Diksa to her mother.

Indira Gandhi’s decision to take the country’s top cop to court comes after his insistence on taking the middle path in cases where the disputing parties had obtained separate orders from the civil and Syariah courts.

“All I want is to have my daughter back,” Indira Gandhi told reporters outside the High Court here yesterday.

“I have filed papers in court as I’m hoping the IGP will tell the court why he is not doing anything.”

Her counsel M. Kula Segaran said that because the IGP was a civil servant, Indira Gandhi had to first apply for leave from the court and to serve her papers on the Attorney-General’s Chambers before she could take Khalid to court.

In April 2009, Mohd Ridzuan reportedly took away Prasana Diksa and converted the child and her siblings Tevi Darsiny, then 12, and Karan Dinish, then 11, to Islam purportedly without Indira Gandhi’s knowledge.

Mohd Ridzuan, formerly known as K. Patmanathan, had also obtained custody of all three children from the Syariah High Court.

The High Court here later granted Indira Gandhi custody of the children and, in March 2010, ordered Mohd Ridzuan to return Prasana Diksa to the mother.