 Bintulu MP Tiong King Sing Bintulu: A total of 157,940 illegal immigrants have returned to their respective native countries since 22 March this year, Member of Parliament for Bintulu Tiong King Sing said today. He said up to June 22, 126,584 Indonesians, 11,311 Bangladeshis, 12,845 Indians, 1,377 Pakistanis, 1,961 Filipinos, 1,199 Chinese, 1,233 Myanmar nationals, 843 Nepalese, 259 Sri Lankans and 328 other nationalities, all of whom, were illegal immigrants, had left the country. "The Government will take strict actions under the Immigration Act (Amendment) 2002 against illegal immigrants who refused to return to their native countries after the amnesty period ends on July 31 2002," he said, in reference to the reply by Home Ministry at the current Parliament session. Tiong had asked Home Minister to reveal the number of illegal immigrants out of 600,000 foreigners who have asked to be included in the amnesty program, which would end by July 31 this year and the actions taken by the Government against those who still refused to return home to their native countries. Tiong said at the moment the Home Ministry would not take any action against illegal immigrants until the amnesty period ended on July 31 and at such time, only then the amended Immigration Act would be enforced from August 1. "The Ministry says that it does not know the actual number of illegal immigrants who have asked for traveling documents through the amnesty program, as all of them are required to apply the traveling documents from their own embassies," he added. On another question, Tiong said Home Ministry revealed that there were 29,698 cases of car thefts that occurred within a period of five years from 1997 to 2001. He said out of the number, 3,299 cases were reported stolen in 1997, 4,605 cases in 1998, 6,196 cases in 1999, 7,278 cases in 2000 and 8,520 cases in 2001. Tiong had asked Home Minister to reveal the number of car thefts including luxury cars over the past five years and actions taken by the police to stamp out the increasing cases of car thefts of which most vehicles were re-sold and smuggled out of the country. He said there were actions, which had been and would be taken by the authorities to curb car thefts. Among them were the police had always monitored all issues relating to car thefts and stamping out these activities had always been the authorities' top priority. "The police's special force team has launched operations codenamed "Ops Cobra" at all contingents and it is being monitored by the Criminal Investigation Department in Bukit Aman. Regular operations have been heightened to curb syndicates which specialized in stealing or dismantling vehicles," he said. Tiong said the police had also prioritized and taken immediate actions based on tip-offs against car thefts activities. "From time to time, the police have been disseminating information in terms of educating the public on ways to protect their vehicles from being stolen," he said. Apart from these, Tiong said, the police had always carried out dialogues and forums between Car Thefts Divisions in the CID and the police contingents,insurance and Used Car Distributor Association. |