By IANS,
Ipoh (Malaysia) : Malaysian Indian woman M. Indira Gandhi has launched a poster campaign to find her husband who has taken away their infant child. She says her husband is intent on converting the entire family to Islam.
Patmanathan, 40, is missing after the high court gave relief to Gandhi last week, restricting him from taking away their three children and meeting the family.
The last message Gandhi received from Patmanathan, now known as Mohammed Ridzuan Abdullah, was that he was leaving for neighbouring Singapore.
Gandhi is distributing 5,000 posters asking people to locate him.
The police have launched a hunt, but advised 35-year-old Gandhi, a kindergarten teacher, to end her vigil at a police station here.
Gandhi is being helped by ethnic Indian legislator A. Sivanesan, who is a lawyer handling conversion cases with Hindu spouses. She spoke to the New Straits Times newspaper over the telephone from a Hindu temple in Kanthan near here Sunday.
She was at the temple to pray for the safe return of Prasana Diksa, whom she last saw March 31 before Patmanathan took away the one-year-old girl and the birth certificates of their three children.
Gandhi says he converted all of them to Islam.
She moved to the temple after she obtained interim custody of her three children – Prasana Diksa, Karan Dinish, 11, and Tevi Darsiny, 12 – and began her vigil at the police station to spur the police to find her husband.
Perak police chief Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah said the police were looking for Patmanathan and that he had also contacted his counterparts in other states.
The case prompted the Malaysian government to take a cabinet-level decision last week that religion of the children would continue to be that of the couple at the time of the marriage.
The decision has been widely welcomed by religious and ethnic groups.