Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Two Malaysian Hindu men Thursday said that they were battling Islamic authorities after being forcibly separated from their Muslim wives in cases highlighting growing religious tensions here.
Suresh Veerapan issued a plea for help after his wife Revathi Masoosai and their baby were forcibly removed from their home and she was put in an Islamic rehabilitation camp.
He said that Revathi, an ethnic Indian and practicing Hindu born to Muslim parents, was sent to the camp for 100 days in January by Islamic authorities in western Malacca state.
Her detention was extended Wednesday by a Sharia court by 80 days, Suresh said, adding that Islamic authorities in March had also taken the 16-month-old baby from him and given the child to his Muslim in-laws.
"We are treated like animals, not humans, the way they have separated me from my wife and baby," said a weeping Suresh, adding that Islamic officials were now keeping him from visiting Revathi. "When I asked them why the extension, they told me she did not cooperate with the authorities there," Suresh said.
Revathi's detention is the latest in a string of religious conflicts involving Muslims and non-Muslims that have sparked outrage in multi-ethnic Malaysia.
In a separate case, another Malaysian Hindu man Thursday vowed to fight Islamic authorities for custody of five of his children who were forcibly separated from him, along with his Muslim wife.
P. Marimuthu said that his wife Raimah Bibi Noordin and their five young Hindu children were taken from their home two weeks ago by religious officials, who said that she was a Muslim.
Raimah and the children are being held in a ethnic Malay Muslim village in western Selangor slate, and Marimuthu's lawyers Thursday filed an application with a high court in the west of Kuala Lumpur to free them.
"I just want to at least get my children back, I do not want them to be Muslims as they were brought up as Hindus," Marimuthu said, adding that he had one son living with him who escaped the raid.
Marimuthu said that Raimah, an ethnic Indian, was adopted by an Indian Muslim family and was a practicing Hindu.
Rights groups have condemned the actions of the Islamic authorities in Raimah's case, saying that they breached the country's constitution, which guarantees freedom of religious practice.