KUALA LUMPUR – Police will investigate claims made by Al-Arqam founder Ashaari Muhammad’s daughter, who told the press yesterday that a Global Ikhwan Services and Business Holdings (GISB) leader had raped and abused her after forcing her into a marriage.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain said that police will track down the woman, Ummu Atiyah Ashaari, and investigations will be conducted if she has filed a police report, Berita Harian reported.
In a press conference yesterday, 41-year-old Ummu claimed that the violence inflicted upon her was abetted by her own siblings, one of whom had ordered her to remove her clothes and expose herself to the man.
Ummu’s trials first started when the GISB leader had, via a WhatsApp message, expressed his intention to wed her as his fourth wife while she was living in Jordan.
While Ummu had attempted to seek protection in her friend’s house, she was soon tracked down by the group leader and made to surrender to him, following which her child from a previous marriage was taken away from her to facilitate her forced union with the leader.
Ummu was then made to live in Turkiye, where she claimed she was tortured by being burned with a lighter and submerged in a pool for extended periods of time, causing her to suffer chest pains.
“If I, as the child of Abuya (Ashaari), can be treated so cruelly, what was the fate of other people (under GISBH’s control)?” she lamented.
She added that while she was “rescued” by her grandmother after several years, she continued to live on the run until authorities’ crackdown on GISBH in September.
Meanwhile, Razarudin confirmed that prosecutors have already pressed charges against two other individuals over claims made by another GISBH victim, known as Dalila Diyana, who told the press conference yesterday that her two brothers were victims of abuse and sexual assault.
She said that she had filed a police report on how her brothers were sexually assaulted and burned with a hot spoon at a GISBH care centre.
Razarudin told Scoop that the report led to a GISB-linked individual being charged in Negri Sembilan.
Dalila is also involved in the criminal intimidation charge brought against Riza Makar, 39, who is accused of threatening Dalila to secure the withdrawal of her police report against the company. – October 19, 2024