'Regret over Indira Gandhi case not enough'

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Deputy Chief Minister II Prof P. Ramasamy (pix) has described MIC's regret over the Court of Appeal decision in the Indira Gandhi case as not sufficient.
Ramasamy in his Facebook posting on Saturday said the party president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam's disappointment was not enough and the party had failed in pressuring the cabinet over the matter.
"Has he got anything else useful to say to the Malaysian public and to the Hindus in the country. What is going on in the government?
"MIC should have pressured the cabinet to do something about the growing threat of unilateral conversions," he posted.
Ramasamy added that the Court of Appeal verdict reopened the Pandora's Box on the vulnerability of a non-Muslim parent.
He said that attempts to remedy the situation from 2009 failed for various reasons but to date no reason has been given why attempts to nullify unilateral conversions have failed.
The Prai state assemblyman said Subramaniam as a minister in the federal government should not confine himself to issuing statement on the Indira Gandhi matter.
He also questioned what the MIC president had done to revive the cabinet committee that was set up in 2009 to resolve this issue.
"What is the progress of this committee on the question of unilateral conversions? How come the 2009 Cabinet decision that forbade the conversion of children below 18 years if they were born to parents who were not Muslims was never implemented in the first place?" he said.
On Dec 30, the Court of Appeal overturned an Ipoh High Court ruling that the conversion of the three children to Islam by one parent was null and void.
In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeal ruled that the matter of conversion of the three children by their father, a Muslim convert Muhammad Riduan Abdullah (formerly known as Pathmanathan s/o Krishnan), fell under the sole purview of the syariah court.
In IPOH, the DAP said it wants the government to form an an all-party parliamentary committee to find a permanent solution to the Indira Gandhi children conversion issue.
DAP vice-chairman M. Kula Segaran called on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak to find a “win-win" formula to this complex issue.
"With the formation of the committee we can have a permanent solution to this unresolved issue," the Ipoh Barat MP said.
Meanwhile, MIC deputy president Datuk Seri S. K. Devamany asked the Cabinet to intervene as it vital for non Muslims to believe and have confidence in the country's judicial system.
"No religion should deny the core of fairness and the right of a child to be loved and to have security and protection," he added.