255 Bangladeshis held in KL crackdown

At least 255 Bangladeshi nationals were detained on the first day of a nationwide crackdown on illegal foreign workers in Malaysia, reports a local daily.

The authorities declared that the detained workers would be deported to their countries of origin within seven days.

The Malaysian police picked up at least 1,565 illegal expatriates including the Bangladeshis in the operation for streamlining the country’s labour market, reports The Star.

Among others, 695 Indonesians and 157 nationals from Myanmar and the rest from Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Philippines, China, Nigeria and Thailand, the report added.

On Monday, Mantu Kumar Biswas, labour counsellor of Bangladesh high commission in Kuala Lumpur told The Daily Star that some Bangladeshi nationals who are working there without valid documents will face the crackdown.

The Bangladeshis who will be detained in the crackdown have to return home paying fines, he said adding that they may face trouble to visit Malaysia later.

Biswas, however, could not confirm the number of Bangladeshis working in Malaysia illegally.

Malaysian Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said all illegals nabbed in the nationwide crackdown would be deported to their countries of origin within seven days.

"The operation carried out with the relevant enforcement agencies will continue until the year-end to detect, detain, charge and deport foreign illegals," he told reporters at the Police Training Centre (Pulapol), here today.

"Their repatriation will not be borne by the Malaysian government, but by their employers or the respective foreign embassies," he added.