M. INDIRA Gandhi’s former husband, who is on the run, has remarried and has three children from the second marriage, said a civil society group that has pledged to work with the police to track him down.

The Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat) told The Malaysian Insight that Muhammad Riduan Abdullah remarried a decade ago and that his second wife was living in Kelantan.

Ingat chairman Arun Dorasamy said the information was shared with the police in April but police had yet to question Riduan’s second wife on his whereabouts.

“We are baffled as to why police have yet to take the statement of Riduan’s wife who is living in Kelantan. Riduan married her when she was 18 and now, she is 28 years old.

“They have three children and the youngest is 2. Therefore, we believe Riduan meets them frequently. The woman can give information on Riduan’s whereabouts,” he said.

Riduan, whose birth name is K. Pathmanathan, has been on the run for more than a decade and is believed to be hiding in southern Thailand.

He married Indira in April 1996 and they have three children. In 2009, however, Riduan took the children after a bitter divorce and converted them to Islam. The Ipoh shariah court granted Riduan permanent custody of the three children.

A year later, the Ipoh High Court granted Indira full custody of the children and three years later, in July 2013, the same high court annulled the children’s conversion, ruling that unilateral conversion was unconstitutional.

The older two children were returned to Indira but not Prasana Diksa, 11.

In May 2014, the Ipoh High Court ordered Riduan’s arrest and for Prasana to be reunited with Indira.

Two years later, the Federal Court ordered then inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar to arrest Riduan for contempt of court but until today, father and daughter could not be located.

Arun, who set up Ingat to help reunite Prasana with Indira, said Riduan had just turned 50 last month and is probably trying to withdraw his savings from his Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) account.

“He will try to enter the country to withdraw his EPF savings and we want to alert the authorities on this,” he said, adding that they believe he is hiding in southern Thailand.

Federal police in April set up a task force to locate Prasana. The task force is led by Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department (CID) director Huzir Mohamed.

Huzir told The Malaysian Insight that the task force will be meeting Ingat soon to discuss the case.

“The inspector-general of police was supposed to meet the family and lawyers last week but he had to attend an urgent conference. A new date will be decided on soon.

“I cannot comment on his allegation but these issues will be ironed out at the next meeting,” Huzir said. – July 10, 2019.