Loh Siew Hong is seen here with one of her children in a video posted on Facebook. — Video screenshot via Facebook/David Marshel
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — The Muslim convert children of Loh Siew Hong, a Hindu mother, have said they would like to live with her once they were back under her care.
In a video Tamilar Kural Malaysia president David Marshel posted online, the children sat with Loh on a couch while she asked them their names and where they would like to stay.
“With mummy,” said one of her daughters, smiling and without hesitation.
Another exchange with her 10-year-old son also elicited a similar response.
Loh’s children were taken away from her in 2019 while she was hospitalised with injuries she claimed were inflicted by her former husband, Nagashwaran Muniandy, who has since converted to Islam and then secretly converted the couple’s children.
In 2019, she obtained interim custody of her children pending her divorce, but her court case was delayed when the country went into Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020; she finally obtained an order granting her full and sole custody in March 2021.
On January 10 this year, Loh said she received information her daughters were at a shelter in Penang while her son contacted her through a friend on Facebook, saying he was attending a tahfiz school in the same state and asking when she could visit.
When she met with them on February 14, they were said to have acted coldly towards her, forcing her to place them temporarily in the care of the Perlis Welfare Department that had gone on to prevent her from visiting them until Thursday.
In her desperation to see them, Loh at one point said she would be willing to convert to Islam if this was required for her to be reunited with her children.
Perlis mufti Datuk Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin previously confirmed that the children were unilaterally converted in the state by their father in July 2020, claiming he did not know their mother’s whereabouts.
The conversion took place despite the 2018 Federal Court ruling in the case of Hindu mother M. Indira Gandhi that the unilateral conversion of minors was unlawful and unconstitutional.