Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said there is no excuse for tourists, whose visas lapsed during the movement control order (MCO) period, not to have renewed their visas.
“I have announced before, those who have overstayed can return to their home country by showing their flight ticket at the airport.
“(I also announced that) if they want to stay longer, they need to go to the immigration office via appointment to renew their visas and so on.
“The immigration office has also been open for a while now, since the conditional MCO if I’m not mistaken and they had their chance to renew their visas.
“So there is no reason why they cannot renew their visas,” Ismail said in his press conference today.
Malaysiakini had reported yesterday that dozens of tourists and business travellers from India are languishing under immigration detention after their 30-day multiple-entry visas lapsed during the MCO period.
Ismail Sabri also said it was possible that those who were detained could have come in as tourists but were found working in Malaysia.
“This goes against our policies […] if they have misused their visas, then, of course, they will be detained.
“I believe the actions taken by the Immigration Department were based on certain reasons,” he said.
Malaysiakini yesterday reported that family members in India had said their relatives were picked up during raids at Jalan Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur in May and have spent more than a month at the Bukit Jalil Immigration Depot – a Covid-19 hotspot with more than 600 cases.
The Zeeawdeen family from Chennai, India, was informed by the Indian High Commission on June 15 that the 67-year-old Indian national who died at the Bukit Jalil Immigration Depot was the head of their household, Zeeawdeen Kadar Masdar.
Zeeawdeen was a tourist, was stranded when flights to India were cancelled during the global lockdown. Visa documents showed he entered the country on March 17, a day before the MCO was imposed.
He was due to return to Chennai on March 20 but instead was detained for more than a month before he was found unconscious in his cell.
A test after Zeeawdeen died confirmed he was Covid-19 positive but he was not infected before he was detained, a Health Ministry document showed. A representative of the family is still waiting to collect his remains.
Immigration Department director-general Khairul Dzaimee Daud had claimed that Zeeawdeen was not the man who died in immigration custody on June 12. - Mkini
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