KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 23): A task force comprising eight Hindu organisations is hoping to meet the prime minister to highlight the plight of some 7,000 people, mostly Hindus, who are listed as Muslim in their official documentation.

The Hindu Conversion Action Team said it met many of them for whom the decisions in the cases of M. Indira Gandhi and S. Deepa painted a hopeless future.

Malaysia Hindu Sangam president Datuk R. S. Mohan Shan told the The Malaysian Insider that the problem was widespread throughout Peninsular Malaysia and involved mostly practising Hindus from the lower income group who are documented as Muslims.

He said the 7,000 cases were a mix of those registered as Muslims by a convert parent generations ago, while some found themselves erroneously registered by the Home Ministry.

"These are people who are afraid to take their cases to court while the rest have no means and have placed their hopes in the cases of Indira and Deepa.

"But the decisions by the court have painted a bleak future for all these people who cannot move forward in life because of their religious status," he said.

Restaurant manager Deepa, after a four-year battle, was only given custody of one of her two children by the Federal Court after her Muslim convert ex-husband converted their children without her consent.

Similarly, the ex-husband of kindergarten teacher Indira, had in 2009 converted the couple’s three children – then aged 12, 11 and 11 months – to Islam, without their presence or Indira’s knowledge, just six days before he obtained a custody order for all three in the Shariah court.

Indira is challenging the conversion of her children and has taken her case to the Federal Court, after the Court of Appeal ruled on December 30 last year that the validity of conversion of the three children by their Muslim father could only be determined by the Shariah Court.

The court’s decisions in both cases have been criticised by several groups as well as opposition politicans and lawyers.

Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) said the decision in Deepa’s case had eroded the constitutional rights of non-Muslims, and would only encourage more unilateral conversions by one spouse – an issue which has far-reaching consequences.

Lawyers have said that Indira’s problem could only end after amendments to the laws, and not through the courts.

Mohan, meanwhile, said he was particularly peeved with cases which involved clerical errors on the part of the Home Ministry in declaring certain Hindus as Muslims.

"There are also those who found out that their religion was registered as Islam in their identity cards when they are not Muslims.

"Obviously these cases are a result of clerical and human error, but instead of the Home Ministry solving it, their officers are asking those affected to go to the Shariah court to sort it out.

"Why should they go to the Shariah court when they are not Muslims?" asked Mohan.

Hindu Youth Organisation Selangor adviser Arun Dorasamy, who heads the task force, said that in some cases, up to three generations of a family unit have been affected by the problem.

The action team currently has 500 cases registered with them, said Dora, adding that the 7,000 was the projected count based on the enquiries and feedback the eight NGOs have received.

He said there was an urgent need to give these people a chance to live the way they wanted.

"There has been a system failure whereby Hindus have been declared as Muslims due to their parents' actions in the past, but they have never practised the faith nor do they know anything about Islam.

"These cases are putting national unity and harmony to the test.

"It is our moral obligation and responsibility to give them the chance to live the way they want," Arun said.

He said they had met Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri who understood the problem and assured them of a meeting with Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the matter.

"We want to be able to give a full presentation to the prime minister to let him know how widespread the problem is in the country, and to brief him on the ways these Hindus have undergone conversion by documentation," he said.