KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Islamic Religious Affairs Department (JHEAINS) rounded up 16 unmarried couples in a series of raids at several cheap hotels during New Year’s eve.
Private college students and civil servants were among the 32 offenders, aged between 20 to 41, that would be charged for close proximity, according to the department’s assistant chief enforcement officer Khamis Jamil.
“Our main target were budget hotels, where 18 of such premises in the city and Putatan were inspected.
“All the suspects were brought to Wisma MUIS and the Putatan District Office to be processed,” he said, when met after the six-hour operation carried out between 11 pm and 5 am.
He said they have also detained four others, three of whom were young women aged between 19 to 22, for consuming alcoholic drinks in public.
The operation was part of an integrated exercise involving various other enforcement agencies, namely the police, Immigration Department, National Anti-Drug Agency, City Hall and the Immigration Department.
All the suspects were being investigated under Section 84 of Sabah Syariah Criminal Offences Act 1995.