Kumud Khanal, coordinator of Nepali manpower agencies sending workers to Malaysia, told myrepublica.com on Sunday that during the last one month Nepali workers who do not have legal documents and overstaying are their visas have been rounded up by the local security personnel across Malaysia. [break]
“Security officials have been detaining illegal immigrants and those overstaying visas who are working in the field other than security guards. Our agents in Malaysia informed that the number of Nepali facing detention has reached around 500 since February 24 when the crackdown began,” Khanal said.
Latest in a series of detention, over 140 illegal migrants including Nepalis have been arrested this week alone.
Shafie Phen, health and environment assistant officer of Kuala Lumpur City Hall, told Barnama.com, official website of the government run news agency that during the operation, 15 hawker stalls operated by foreigners in Selayang were sealed, while closure orders were issued to six other premises in Jalan Silang for law violations.
Ninety-one people, including 19 women, from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal, aged between 20 and 50, were also nabbed at Central Market, Chow Kit and Petaling Street areas for not having valid travel documents.
According to the news agency, among the Nepalis detained is a security guard who was found running an illegal clinic in Plaza Taleju in Jalan Silang. However, officials haven´t disclosed the names of the migrant workers detained during the operation.
All of them were taken to the immigration department´s temporary detention depot in Putrajaya for further investigation.
Nepali who had gone with a permit to work as a security guard was found operating a clinic hanging a signboard written Nepali language targeting for Nepali workers.
The “doctor” entered Malaysia using a work permit for security guard, but we wonder how he could open a clinic instead, the website said.
The Nepali worker has been handed over to the immigration department to facilitate investigations under the Immigration Act 1963.
Similarly, Penang Immigration Department has detained 53 illegal immigrants of different nationalities under code-named ´Ops Mahir´ on March 23 from two factories of Butterworth of Malaysia.
In the first operation at an electronics factory in Perai, officials had detained 33 foreign nationals who are from Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam. According to the investigation officers 31 of them were found to be without valid travel documents while the rest had overstayed.
In another operation, 21 foreigners, including 10 women, were detained in Seberang Jaya city for not possessing work permits.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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