Those illegal Bangladeshi labourers had come back home before deadline of a four-month-old amnesty by the Malaysian government ended on midnight of February 28.

Kuala Lumpur has appointed six Malaysian companies to recruit the workers through some Bangladeshi recruiting agents, Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Major (retired) Qamrul Islam told parliament yesterday.

Replying to BNP lawmaker Rashiduzzaman Millat, he said Bangladesh and Malaysia on October 22, 2003 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding export of Bangladeshi manpower.

The MoU took effect from March 1, 2004. But a large number of workers could not be sent in last one year as a new government was installed in Kuala Lumpur, the minister said, adding it would take some time to finalise the procedures for exporting Bangladeshi manpower.

He, however, said some 650 workers from Bangladesh were employed in Sabak and Sarawak provinces of Malaysia by this time.

He hoped that the Malaysian government would soon start recruiting new workers from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, no Bangladeshi was reported to be among the arrested in crackdown that the Malaysian government was having against hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants yesterday. Malaysian police as part of the nation-wide crackdown raided workplaces in the early hours of Tuesday and arrested at least 131 people, mostly Indonesians.

State minister for expatriates' welfare and overseas employment told BDNEWS, " We have information that so far none from Bangladesh has been arrested. Most of the Bangladeshis who were illegally working there had already returned home."

"If anyone is still there, it is his responsibility," the state minister added.

Some 450 civilian volunteers and 13 immigration officers carried out the first raid shortly after midnight on a construction site in Cheras, south of Kuala Lumpur, which netted 62 Indonesians, immigration officials said.

Some of the illegal immigrants fled into surrounding forests under cover of darkness in an attempt to escape the dragnet but later surrendered to the officials, who were armed with batons while six officers also carried side arms.

The 62 Indonesians, including 27 from tsunami-hit Aceh province, were being held at Semenyih detention centre south of Kuala Lumpur, Mohamad Amirudin Mohamad Yusof, director of the 300,000-strong civilian security force who led the raid, told news agency AFP.

"It is a successful operation. No one was injured. We will conduct more raids," he said. The volunteers are paid 80 ringgit (21 dollars) for each illegal worker caught in the nation-wide operation codenamed "Ops Tegas".

The crackdown against illegal immigrants, mainly Indonesians, marks the end of an amnesty, which has twice been extended at Jakarta's request.

Malaysia had estimated there were nearly a million illegal workers in the country, mostly from Indonesia but also from the Philippines, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

(UNB, BDNEWS, AFP)