KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN court on Thursday ordered a Muslim convert husband to return a baby girl to her Hindu mother, after she waged a custody battle to challenge the secret conversion of her children.
Indira Ghandi, a 35-year-old teacher won the case after her husband K. Patmanathan converted himself and their three children - aged 13, 12 and the 22-month-old baby - without her knowledge last year.
A civil court gave temporary custody of the three children to Indira in April last year. The older two children are with their mother, but the husband did not return the toddler.
'The court today decided it has jurisdiction to hear the case and awarded the (permanent) custody of the three children to the mother,' Indira's lawyer K. Shanmuga told AFP. 'The court also directed the husband to return the 22-month-old girl.'
Mr Shanmuga praised the court's move to hear the case as 'brave decision', but said that Mr Patmanathan, now known as Mohamad Ridzuan Abdullah, had refused to inform the court of the baby girl's whereabouts. 'We don't know where is she now, as the father refused to tell us,' he said.
Ms Indira is now fighting another legal battle to secure a court order to quash her three children's conversion to Islam. Under Malaysian sharia law, a non-Muslim parent cannot share custody of converted children. In the past, non-Muslims say they did not get a fair hearing when family law cases end up in religious courts. -- AFP
