MIC Youth said they welcomed the decision made by the court yesterday ordering Muslim convert Izwan Abdullah to produce his son in court and for the mother, Deepa Subramaniam, to meet him.

The court said if Izwan failed to do so, it would not allow the hearing of his application on Jan 14, for a stay of the recovery order.

However, MIC Youth leader C Sivarraajh said the decision made by the court should be complied with and enforced by the authorities, or it would be meaningless.

“We urge the police to enforce the rule of law and ensure the son is returned to Deepa,” he added in a statement yesterday.

Sivarraajh (left) added that the wing was not against Izwan’s conversion but he should have taken better measures to inform his family and put the welfare of the children first.

Even though the decision made today sided Deepa, Sivarraajh called on the amendments to be made to family laws to minimise custody battles because of religious conversions.

“MIC Youth is worried about all the other Deepas in the country facing a similar plight. To avoid future agony of other families, we call for family laws to be amended to explicitly disallow unilateral conversions, as per the 2009 Cabinet decision,” he proposed.

The High Court in Seremban on April 7 last year granted custody of the couple’s six-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter to Deepa.

Two days after that, Izwan took their son away, with Deepa suffering injuries when she tried to stop her former husband escaping with the child in a car. 

The Court of Appeal last month unanimously dismissed Izwan's appeal against the Seremban High Court order granting custody of their two children to Deepa.

However a three-member bench of the Court of Appeal granted a three-week stay of execution on the order for the recovery of the child, for the appeal to be heard by the Federal Court yesterday, where the court decided that Izwan should produce the son in court.