Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email Housewife glad to be back home
SHAH ALAM: M. Revathi, the housewife and mother who was released on Thursday after six months' internment in a faith rehabilitation centre, is overjoyed at being reunited with her family.
"The separation was unbearable. I do not want any woman to go through the same ordeal," she said at the Shah Alam High Court yesterday, where she was following a habeas corpus application her husband V. Suresh filed on her behalf two months ago.
The mother of an 18-month-old daughter described her stay at the centre in Hulu Yam Bharu, Selangor, as a sad chapter in her life.
"I really missed my husband and daughter who was then still being breast-fed."
Revathi, whose Muslim name is Siti Fatimah Abdul Karim, said she had always looked forward to seeing them once a fortnight even if it was for a short while outside the centre's gates.
Revathi was detained at the Baitul Aman faith rehabilitation centre on Jan 8.
On Thursday, the Malacca Syariah High Court ordered that she be placed under the care of her Muslim parents.
Revathi said the court had also ruled that she should remain a Muslim.
Recollecting her time at the centre, Revathi said she would be up at 5am and undergo religious programmes until 11pm each day.
"But I was left alone when others performed obligatory prayers five times a day," she said.
She said the other women, including wayward girls, at the centre sympathised with her and comforted her.
Revathi said she cried a lot, especially when she was left alone.
"I looked forward to the day I would be set free," she said.
Her parents had converted to Islam before their children were born. Revathi, the eldest of five siblings, was raised by her grandmother in Merlimau, Malacca.
She met Suresh nine years ago and in 2004 they underwent a Hindu wedding, whereupon she took the name Revathi.
Soon after the marriage, she attempted to change her Muslim name and religion at the National Registration Department but was told to get a certificate from the Syariah Court.
Her misery began when she made the application and the state religious authority obtained a court order to send her to the rehabilitation centre.
