FORMER kindergarten teacher Indira Gandhi’s interference hampered police’s efforts in reuniting her with daughter Prasana Diksa, said outgoing Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador.

“I appealed to Madam Indira. I appealed to her through someone… a senior police officer,” Hamid said.

He said he appealed to Indira to give police more time and not to meddle in the investigations by making statements that were jeopardising their work.

“But she didn’t listen. Look, what happened?” Hamid said in a press conference at Bukit Aman today.

Hamid said someone from a civil society group took the lead and started criticising the police while negotiations were being carried out.

He did not name the group but the Indira Gandhi Action Team (Ingat) had offered a RM50,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Indira’s former husband Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, who fled with the Prasana more than a decade ago.

Ingat and Indira had also hit out at police for their failure in locating the girl and subsequently filed a RM100 million suit against Hamid and the police.

“The man (Riduan) is not in the country. He is abroad. That’s the problem. We can’t simply go in and kidnap and bring him back home. No, we cannot,” Hamid said.

“We have to have a very diplomatic approach. Negotiations are still going on.

“The man is frightened, otherwise I believe last year a huge progress could have been made but the interference frightened him and severed communications for a while.”

Hamid said he still sympathised with Indira, the agony of not having the daughter with her.

“I hope efforts to bring her back home will succeed,” he said.

Riduan, in 2014, was ordered by the Ipoh High Court to return Prasana to Indira but failed to do so, leading to a court order compelling police to arrest him.

In 2018, Indira won a 10-year legal battle to gain custody of Prasana.

The Federal Court in January last year nullified the unilateral conversion of her three children to Islam.

The two older children live with Indira and are raised as Hindus. Prasana has been missing since she was a baby. – April 30, 2021.