Police deny Keningau swarmed with illegals

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KENINGAU: The police here yesterday strongly denied that  the district is swarmed with illegal immigrants.

Zahari (second right) together with his officers when speaking at a press conference in his office here yesterday.

“The report that illegal immigrants are flooding the district as reported by a national media recently is not true,” said district police chief Deputy Superintendent Zahari Mohamed in press conference at his office here.

He was commenting on a recent newspaper report which claimed that  illegal immigrants were flooding this district.

He said the public did not know the real definition of illegal immigrants until the Bugis and Filipinos were considered as illegals but many of them have legal documents such as Mykad, passport and IMM13.

He said those who possessed valid documents would be released after inspection done during the various operations conducted by the police, such as the weekly crime prevention and the integrated operations carried out with the federal special task force.

According to him the police conduct regular operations twice a month, apart from the integrated operations launched once every three months. The police also have crime prevention operations that involve arresting illegal immigrants apart from operations based on information received from members of the public.

Zahari said police MPVs were  also carrying out operations to spot checks on illegal immigrants.

“ From January to September, 17 regular operations were  carried out by the police. This does not include other operations such as crime prevention, weekly operations that are carried out twice,  integrated operation and operation  made by  the police MPVs,” he said.

He also said the police have a committee to handle illegal immigrants which have started operations a month ago.

“The community must understand the term, ‘illegal immigrants’. Only those that do not possess any valid document are illegal immigrants,” he said.

He said the statistics on illegal immigrants  arrested in police operations during the first nine months this year  totalled 371 people and from the total, 129 were Filipinos, 230 Indonesians and 12 other races.

According to him, from the total,  60 Filipinos and 62 Indonesians were referred to the Immigration Department for further action.

Zahari advised community leaders  to give accurate information to the police on illegal immigrants  found in their area  so that action to arrest them could be done.

He however believed  there was no entry of illegal immigrants from outside as those checked had valid documents.

“Those with suspicious documents would be referred to the National Registration Department and Immigration Department for confirmation,” he said.

“The   illegal immigrant problem in this district is under control,” he said.