KUALA LUMPUR: A 21-year-old Malay student from Kajang has been missing for about two months in Perth, Western Australia, after abandoning her final semester in Curtin University of Technology.

A team including lawyers is being put together by the Putera Umno community protection secretariat to go there and locate her after repeated pleas for help by her parents - a businessman and a clerk. The parents did not want to reveal her full name, only wanting her to be known as Ipah.

“It’s not an easy job to track her down and bring her back, but we’ll do our best,” said the secretariat’s chief Datuk Abdul Azeez Abd Rahman to reporters on Wednesday, adding that the parents had also filed a police report with the Kajang police station.

According to the report by her mother, the girl had decided to stop pursuing her geology degree after losing interest in her studies early this year. Instead, she had been hired by a Mr Reg as a manager of a cleaning company, said her mother in the report.

Despite pleas by her mother to reconsider her decision, Ipah was adamant not to continue her studies.

“She told her parents that she was unhappy with her field of study and wanted to return home,” Azeez said.

However, in their last conversation last week, the mother learnt that Ipah had recently been discharged from a hospital there after swallowing 50 paracetamol pills because she could not handle the work pressure.

Since then, Ipah had swithed off her handphone and has not contacted her parents.

It was learnt that the girl had been a bright student who scored nine A’s in her Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia.

She has been in Perth for three and a half years pursuing a geology degree under a scholarship by a major government-linked company.

She was supposed to have finished her course in another six months but had wanted to stop studying and return home on July 15.

The parents were there to greet Ipah but they learnt she did not board the flight.

To preserve their identities, the parents had declined to appear during the press conference and instead requested the secretariat to speak to the press on their behalf.

Azeez urged all parents with children studying overseas to remain in constant contact with their children.

“Check on them often and look at how they are doing, their progress - whether they are your sons or daughters,” he said.