ANOTHER birthday has passed for M. Indira Gandhi’s missing daughter Prasana Diksa.

Prasana turned 15 on April 8. She was snatched from her mother when she was just 11 months old by her father K. Padmanathan, who had converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Riduan Abdullah. He had also converted all his three children with Indira without her consent.

Indira has not seen her daughter for 14 years and does not even know how she looks, a fact that fills her with anguish.

“My daughter has turned 15, a teenager, but the only image I have of her is as a toddler.

“I don’t know how she looks, how she is, is she going to school… nothing. For a mother, not knowing all this is the biggest pain,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

Indira said it does not matter what faith Prasana practises as long as her daughter is happy.

“My daughter is not with me although all the (court) decisions say she should be with me.

“Every year, I am questioned by the media and I have been giving the same answers again and again because nothing has changed.

‘It doesn’t matter if she practices Islam or what, if I meet her and get to be with her, at least I’ll know that she is healthy and safe,” she said.

Indira, a former kindergarten teacher who is now a tutor, has been fighting the system for 14 years to be reunited with her daughter.

Her former husband converted Prasana and her older two siblings into Islam without Indira’s knowledge.

In 2018, in a landmark ruling, the Federal Court quashed the unilateral conversion of Indira’s children and gave custody of Prasana to her mother.

But police have not been able to find the girl and her father, for whom there is an arrest warrant.

Indira said the government has let her down.

“I’d like to stress that this is not about finding my ex-husband but about finding my daughter, who was taken away from me when she was young.

“Despite having gone through the legal battles and winning the case, I am still the loser because although my other two children are with me, my youngest daughter is not.

“Over the years, the authorities and the government have let me down,” she said.

Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani is the sixth police chief to take up the case of the missing Prasana. It has been two years since he became the country’s top cop, but he has not issued a single statement on the developments in Indira’s case.

On whether she has hope that the Anwar Ibrahim govt will do a better job at tracking down her daughter, Indira is pessimistic.

“I’ve seen several IGPs come and go but none have been able to find my daughter.

“Governments, too, have come and gone, let it be 1Malaysia, Malaysia Baharu, Kerajaan Prihatin and Keluarga Malaysia. All have catchy slogans but none were able to bring my daughter back,” she said.

Indira said this is because the authorities have been biased.

“I don’t feel enough effort is being put into (locating her daugher). Why? I feel that the authorities are biased. If this were the other way around, I don’t think it would have taken this long,” she said.

Despite her case setting a precedent for similar conversion cases in Malaysia, Prasana continues to be denied a mother’s care and her right to grow up as a Hindu.

In March, Indira and 13 others went to court to challenge the unilateral religious conversion of children in the federal territories and seven states.

Indira Gandhi Action Team chairman Arun Dorasamy said the case cited the 2018 Federal Court ruling on Indira’s case.

Arun said the lawsuit seeks a High Court order to nullify the law allowing unilateral religious conversion contained in the enactments of Putrajaya, Labuan, Kuala Lumpur, Perlis, Kedah, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak and Johor. – May 3, 2023.