THE police put minimal effort into locating M. Indira Gandhi’s daughter in the last six years, said the lawyer of the former kindergarten teacher after studying the affidavits filed by the law enforcers.

The court had ordered the cops last month to submit their sworn statements on what they have done to comply with a previous court order to find the missing Prasana Diksa.

Lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan said he received the affidavits on Thursday, the final day for submission.

“The lack of details in the affidavits shows they (police) didn’t do much to locate Prasana.

“Minimal effort was expended by the police considering the fact that six years have passed,”  he told The Malaysian Insight.

On December 17, the Ipoh High Court ordered the Attorney-General’s Chambers to submit a detailed report on police efforts to track down Indira’s former husband and daughter as ordered by the court in 2014.

Judicial Commissioner Bhupindar Singh gave the AGC, which represented the police, three weeks to file 79 affidavits on the measures that had been taken to find Muhammad Riduan Abdullah and Prasana.

This was because the police appeared to have ignored the 2014 court order and had failed to submit any affidavit, either to the court or to Indira’s lawyer, since May 30 the same year.

Rajesh said the police would have been held in contempt of court had they failed to present the affidavits by the deadline.

“We have gone through the affidavits and there is nothing much there. What they (police) are saying doesn’t hold water. For example, the whole of 2017 they said they were looking for Riduan. But what did they actually do?”

Rajesh said the affidavits were vague and lacked detail.

“If they had abided by the court order (in 2014) to give monthly updates then there would be more details. But it seems clear from the lack of details that they did nothing.”

Riduan, a Muslim convert, was ordered by the High Court in 2014 to return Prasana to her mother. He did not obey the order, causing the court to issue a mandamus order compelling the police to arrest him.

Riduan snatched Prasana, who was a baby at the time, and his and Indira’s two older children after he unilaterally converted them to Islam.

The court granted Indira custody of the three children after finding their conversion to be unlawful. She has since been reunited with two of her children. Prasana, who is now 11, is still missing.– January 10, 2021.