AFTER exhausting all avenues to locate her daughter, M. Indira Gandhi is now seeking the help of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) to hold a public inquiry to find her child.

She is hoping that Suhakam can assist her, as the authorities remain clueless as to what had happened to Prasana Diksa, 11, who was taken away by her former husband nine years ago.

Indira told The Malaysian Insight that she met with the commission on Friday in the hopes that they can help her.

“We have no way to locate Prasana and we don’t even know if she is a missing person’s case.

“We have met with Suhakam and they had agreed to look into the matter.

“We hope they can look at it as a missing child’s case and into the human rights violation on the authorities’ part,” she said.

After winning her 10-year legal battle, police have been ordered to locate her ex-husband, K. Pathmanathan @ Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, and Prasana.

Criminal Investigation Department director Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd said despite media statements issued and calls for the public to help track down Riduan, the authorities are no closer to finding him.

Police have been searching for Riduan since a warrant was issued by the Ipoh High Court on May 20, 2014, he said.

Indira also met with the Inspector-General of Police Mohd Fuzi Harun, who agreed to set up a task force to locate Prasana.

“He agreed to set up a task force immediately. 

“We have exchanged information and we hope to have more communication on their efforts to locate her.”

Arun Dorasamy of the Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat), who was present at the Suhakam meeting, lodged a human rights violation complaint against the police and government. 

The complaint is based on the refusal of police to act upon the court order which resulted in Prasana’s disappearance. 

As for the government, he alleged that it was its failure to safeguard the rights of Indira as enshrined by constitution for equal protection under the law and to protect the rights of Prasana from unilateral conversion. 

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, Fuzi asked the public for help to provide information to locate Riduan and Prasana. – April 23, 2019.