Cops to probe assault, but not custody battle - Malaysiakini

Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar clarified today that his men have acted on all police reports lodged by S Deepa and her ex-husband Izwan Abdullah, but are not able to act on their child custody dispute.

 

Khalid said police have opened four investigation papers on Deepa's police reports, including her accusation that Izwan had assaulted her and that he had violated an interim protection order.

 

"The thing that the police will not interfere is the child custody, the rest we will do our job.

 

"We had even arrested him (Izwan) earlier but released him on bail pending completion of the investigation," Khalid told journalists when met in Kuala Lumpur today.

Khalid said Izwan's past arrest was also related to the many police reports lodged by Deepa but did not specify which case.

 

Deepa, a Hindu, had on April 7 won custody of her six-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter from the Seremban High Court.

 

Two days later, she accused Izwan of assaulting her and kidnapping their son from her house.

 

Izwan, whose original name is N Viran, had converted to Islam together with the children without Deepa's knowledge and obtained custody of the kids from the Syariah Court last August.

 

Following the incident, Khalid had said police will not interfere in the matter due to the conflicting orders by the civil and syariah court.

 

The remarks had earned him brickbats including from Tourism Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz who said police refused to act in a "clear-cut kidnapping".

 

'No kidnapping'

 

Khalid today refused to respond to Nazri, saying that he did not want to contradict the minister and stressed the police did not want to be caught in a tussle between two legal systems.

 

"There is no offence there, that (incident) is not a kidnapping case, it is not an abduction either," he said.

 

As for the other matters, Khalid said Deepa had lodged more than 20 police reports while Izwan had lodged more than 10 police reports since 2007.

 

"They were about quarrels both of them had. So you know, quarrels, we refer those cases to the magistrate. There was also one report of abuse (made) by the male (Izwan), so we open up an investigation (for that).

 

"One more was a 324 investigation (based on Deepa's police report), but after some time she withdrew it - I think it was one or two years ago," said Khalid.

 

Khalid was referring to Section 324 of the Penal Code which concerns causing hurt to a person.

 

"Then there was one report in the IPO (interim protection order) police report that we are investigating still and the recent report (of the assault incident) we are still investigating," he said.

 

Khalid added Deepa can file for contempt of court against her husband for taking away their son and police will see how to enforce it once that comes to past.

 

"She can file for contempt of court and we will enforce whatever decision later but it must be - we don't want to be caught between these two legal systems - it must be a clear system and we will enforce," he said.