The Kotaraya shopping mall was the scene of a tense standoff between mobile phone vendors and Immigration Department officials were, who were conducting a spot check on undocumented foreign workers (PATI).
When being inspected for illegally employing and harbouring PATIs, the mobile phone vendors at the mall turned unruly, and began hurling abuse and threats at the Immigration Department officers at the scene.
The raid was part of the Immigration Department’s ongoing Ops Ikrar exercise.
Harian Metro‘s Kalidevi Mogan Kumarappa reports that in a volatile 15-minute tussle, vendors tried to obstruct the raid and yanked at the inspectors’ uniforms when they were asked to produce identification papers. They also hurled threats of further violence and racist abuse towards the officers.
The riled up vendors, most of them local, also took photos of the inspecting officers and vowed retribution should the officers ever returned to Kotaraya.
Members of the press who accompanied the raid were also harrassed and threatened.
The situation was ameliorated only after the police stepped in and apprehended the unruly vendors.
Immigration officers noted that while local business owners and employers turned violent during the inspection, immigrant workers who were canvassed during the operation cooperated fully to the authorities.
Immigration director-general Mustafa Ibrahim said the raid was conducted following reports that Kotaraya and the nearby Puduraya transit hub were overrun by foreigners on the weekends.
“Out of 315 people inspected during the raid, 162 were found to have committed immigration offences,” he said.
“Those found to have committed offences were 50 Nepalese, 44 Bangladeshis, 22 Myanmar nationals, 18 Indonesians, 17 Filipinos, eight Pakistanis, one Uzbek national, and two local employers.”
They will be investigated under Section 6(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 on the charge of possessing no valid travel documents, Section 15(1)(c)of the same Act for overstaying in Malaysia, Section 55B of the Act for hiring undocumented workers, and Rule 39(b) of the Immigration Rules 1963 for abuse of a visitation pass.
“All those detained have been taken to the Immigration Detention Depot in Jalan Duta for further investigation,” Mustafa said.
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