KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 ― Separated since 2019, Hindu mother Loh Siew Hong described her first day reunited with her three children who were unilaterally converted to Islam as a “sweet day”.
Loh told news portal Free Malaysia Today that she had cooked up a batch of Maggi goreng, the dish her two twin teen daughters and 10-year-old son missed over the three years they were apart, and they ate happily.
According to the news report, all four sounded happy during the interview when Loh turned on her speaker phone.
The children said they were happy to be home with their mother.
One of the 14-year-old twins told the news portal that she wanted to enter the police academy when she grew up. Her sister said she wanted to be a counsellor or a law practitioner.
“I want to repair big drones when I grow up,” the boy was quoted saying as his sisters giggled in the background.
Loh told the news portal that she is saving money to set up a food truck business.
She related that she ran an economy rice stall at Taman Ria Jaya in Sungai Petani, Kedah before landing a job as an assistant chef in a hotel in Genting Highlands, Pahang.
She believes that she can do well with her experience in hand, and is adept at cooking both Chinese and Indian cuisines such as char koay teow and mee goreng.
“My passion is cooking. I even studied culinary arts at a community college,” she told FMT.
“At first, I wanted to rent a stall at a shop near Cameron Highlands. But then I thought, if I had a food truck, I could sell my food at different places. That way, I can earn more money to save up for my children’s education. I want to send them to university.
“I have bought all the cooking ware, thinking I will be able to rent a small stall. I have also seen some food trucks for sale online, but I am unsure if I can afford it now. But, I am open to advice.”
Loh’s quest to reunite with her children began back in 2019 when her ex-husband Nagashwaran Muniandy took them away while she was hospitalised with injuries she said he inflicted.
In December 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 sole custody in March 2021.
All this time, she continued to look for them all over the country and had not known that the minors had been converted to Islam in Perlis.
Loh finally reunited with her children yesterday after the High Court granted her a writ of habeas corpus for an immediate release of her three children from alleged unlawful detention.
* A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.
