By MUGUNTAN VANAR
KOTA KINABALU: The first day of Ops Bersepadu, the much-anticipated massive crackdown on illegals in Sabah, zeroed in on the notorious Pulau Gaya and other immigrant hotspots around the city here.
However, the number detained was only a “trickle” as many are believed to have gone into hiding or returned to their home country after the wide publicity.
Areas where small teams of police raided saw children among those taken with their parents who failed to produce the necessary documents. There were no untoward incidents although people were seen fleeing on the arrival of the enforcers knocking on the doors of kongsi (shared) and rented homes.
“It was conducted smoothly and we had anticipated lower numbers of illegal immigrants as there has been publicity that action would come in the first week,” said deputy state police chief Datuk Abdul Razak Abdul Ghani.
From the predawn sweep in Pulau Gaya, a 10-minute boat ride from the town here, six Filipinos including a child were found without proper documents from a total of 131 detained in various areas of city and Penampang.
Officers from the Immigration and National Registration Departments, the Federal special task force on illegal immigrants and other agencies carried out the screening process at the Luyang Community Centre and Federal Complex multipurpose hall.
The illegal immigrants would be sent to the temporary detention centre in Menggatal or the newly set up temporary immigration detention centre at the army’s Kem Paradise in Kota Belud to await deportation.
The operations is being coordinated by a secretariat under the State Security Council headed by Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman who is in charge of immigration matters.
The operations is expected to carry on for the next few months in various areas in the west coast before moving to the east coast districts.
Though no official estimates on the number of illegal immigrants are available most agree that they numbered around 150,000.
Sabah’s complex migrant problems include status of Filipino refugees, dubious holders of Malaysian citizenship apart from security and social problems posed by their presence.
