KUALA LUMPUR, April 12. Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar should step down if he is unwilling to act on the alleged abduction of a boy by his Muslim-convert father in Seremban, senior DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said today.
The Gelang Patah MP said the IGP is duty-bound to uphold the recent ruling by the Seremban High Court awarding full custody of the boy, 6, and his nine-year-old sister to their Hindu mother, Deepa Subramaniam.
“The failure and refusal of the Inspector-General of Police to uphold the law and to ignore the Seremban child abduction case is the height of irresponsibility for the top policeman in the country,” he said in a statement.
Lim echoed the view by former de-facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, saying it would be a mistake to think an earlier ruling by the Shariah High Court that awarded custody of the children to the father, Izwan Abdullah, justifies snatching the boy from his ex-wife’s home.
“The IGP should remember his sworn oath to uphold the law and the Constitution and should take immediate action to ensure that the ‘abducted’ son is immediately returned to her mother who has lawful custody under following their civil union,” Lim said.
Earlier today, Nazri reportedly criticised the police for failing to act against what he called the “kidnapping” of the child by the Muslim convert father.
The tourism minister, who championed prohibitions on unilateral child conversions, said the father was clearly violating the civil High Court’s decision to award full custody of the children to his ex-wife.
“It is a civil law marriage, it is the civil court, we must respect the civil court’s ruling. They have the jurisdiction,” Nazri was quoted as saying in a report by The Star newspaper today.
“The High Court judge’s ruling was correct. The police shouldn’t allow him to get away with kidnapping the child.”
Yesterday, Khalid said the police would not act against Izwan in the alleged abduction as the Hindu-turned-Muslim had won custody of the boy and his sister in the Shariah High Court.
This earned the police chief brickbats from various parties, including the Women’s Aid Organisation — which helped Deepa pursue her case — saying that it was “unreasonable” to expect the mother to “talk this over” with her ex-husband, especially after the court granted an interim protection order against Izwan for domestic abuse.
On Monday, the Seremban High Court granted Deepa full custody of her two children as her marriage to Izwan — then known as Viran Nagapan — in 2004 was a civil union and did not come under Shariah law, also permitting her to divorce Izwan who converted to Islam in 2012.
It remains unclear if the High Court’s judgement overrules an earlier decision by the Shariah Court, which awarded custody of the children to Izwan in April last year.
Izwan is believed to have converted their children in April last year without Deepa’s consent.
Malay Mail Online