Malaysian immigration department detained 329 Bangladeshis from different states of the country during a drive against illegal immigrants, says a local newspaper.

The department began the drive after the deadline to apply for the temporary Enforcement Card (E-Card) expired at midnight on Friday, The Malay Mail Online reported yesterday.

In the drive, 175 Bangladeshi were detained at Johor Bahru, five at Alor Setar, 132 at Kota Bharu, 11 at Melaka, one at IPOH, four at Kuantan and one at Seremban, it said.

The immigration department also detained illegal immigrants from Nepal, Myanmar, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Immigration Department Director General Datuk Sri Mustafar Ali said the detained illegal immigrants gave various reasons for not having applied for the E-Card.

“Here I want to stress that the expiry date for the E-Card application will not be extended, we have given ample time to foreign workers and employers to register, and we have also requested cooperation from the respective embassies of the illegal immigrants to make announcements about the E-Card,” he told reporters.

Mustafar said there would be no compromising with employers and illegal immigrants who were found to have no documents and that operation to hunt down these illegal immigrants would be carried out on a daily basis.

The E-Card will act as a temporary validation to allow foreign workers who do not have valid documents to work in Malaysia.

The card, however, will expire on February 15 next year and before that the cardholder must obtain a valid travel document from the embassies of the respective countries.