ALOR STAR – The Kedah Social Welfare Department will implement the procedures laid out by the Child Act 2001 in relation to Loh Siew Hong’s three children, who are now under the custody of the Taman Sinar Harapan children’s home in Jitra, Kedah.
Its director Shaballah Zainal Abidin, however, refused to elaborate further on the matter, saying that the department will follow the stipulated act in handling the case of the three children.
Shaballah said this when asked whether the department needed to produce the children at the Kuala Lumpur High Court at the hearing of Loh’s habeas corpus application on February 21.
Loh filed a habeas corpus application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on February 13 to compel the return of her three children into her custody, as she alleges that they are being held illegally by the Perlis Islamic Religious Affairs Department.
Her counsel Shamsher Singh Thind will be seeking for the application to be heard urgently this week as Loh is worried that her children may go missing the longer she waits.
Loh had later agreed with the Social Welfare Department to have interim custody of her children, pending the habeas corpus hearing.
Loh, a chef, was separated from her children about four years ago after she was assaulted by her former husband and thrown out from their home in Sg Petani in 2019.
She was hospitalised due to her injuries and fractured left leg. After being discharged, she was sheltered in a home under the Welfare Department in Sg Petani.
Pursuant to that, she was also sheltered at a home under the Women Change Centre in Penang, prior to starting work at a hotel in Genting Highlands.
Loh said that her ex-husband was currently serving a prison sentence in Kelantan for drug-related offences and alleged that he and the children have been converted to Islam.
On March 15 last year, Loh obtained a court order from the Kuala Lumpur High Court that gave her sole custody of her three children. However, she could not trace the whereabouts of her children.
Last week, Loh received a message from an unidentified person stating that her son was at a religious school in Tasek Gelugor. She rushed to see him the next day but found out that he had been taken away by a third party.
The neighbours who identified her son said that he was taken away in a van. – The Vibes, February 15, 2022
