KUALA LUMPUR: A standard one pupil in Lenggeng, Negeri Sembilan, suffered severe burns on her lips when her stepmother allegedly forced her to drink boiling hot water on Monday.
The incident occurred just a day after the biological mother of the child took the youngest of four siblings back to her ex-husband's house in Lenggeng.
The victim's mother Nurul Dahlia Jaafar said she only learned about the incident on Friday afternoon about 12.30pm when she had gone to pick up the child from her ex-husband's sister's house.
"I went to pick her up for her to spend the weekend at my place. I noticed that her lips were badly burnt. When I asked her what happened, she told me that her stepmother had forced her to drink hot boiling water on Monday," she said when met at the Pediatric Unit of Kuala Lumpur Hospital yesterday.
Nurul who is a religious school teacher said she never expected the husband's new wife to be that cruel and suspected that the woman was suffering from some mental problem.
She lodged a police report on the alleged abuse.
"I'm still shocked with what happened. Only now I realise why the third and the youngest children always refuse and cry when its time to go back to their father's house," said Nurul who was divorced from her husband in 2011.
She said she had surrendered custody of her four daughters to her husband during the divorce due to financial constraints and things slowly started to change after he remarried in December 2016.
Nurul's daughters are aged 14, 13, 8 and 7. Of the four, three were staying with the ex-husband and one was in a hostel and studying.
Nurul said the child custody issue was currently in the Syariah Court but she was worried that while waiting for a decision, something unpleasant might happen to her children who were with her ex-husband and his new wife.
She hoped that the custody matter would be resolved soon
Meanwhile, Dang Wangi District Police Chief Assistant Commissioner Shaharudin Abdullah when contacted confirmed the report by Nurul.
"The woman made a report on Saturday evening alleging her ex-husband and his new wife had abused her seven-year-old daughter," he said adding that investigation had been handed over to the Nilai police.