KUALA LUMPUR, May 26 — Malaysian authorities are currently investigating the possibility that some among them are in cahoots with the human traffickers responsible for the deaths of migrants found buried in mass graves discovered recently in Padang Besar.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today said initial investigations found that Malaysian enforcement officers had collaborated with traffickers with international links spanning Thailand, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“We suspect some of them. We are also working with the Forestry Department, in terms of enforcement at the boundary between Thailand and Malaysia,” he said when door-stopped at the Parliament lobby.
“They (forestry department) are supposed to enforce the area... I need to discuss this matter with the minister concerned,” he said.
Zahid also confirmed that several arrests have been made, but did not provide any specifics.
Over the weekend, Malaysian security forces discovered mass graves near 17 tents in Padang Besar near the Malaysia-Thailand border, believed to have been used as a transit point for victims of the human trafficking trade.
Ahmad Zahid had said earlier that the tents are believed to have been in use for at least five years.
The authorities have yet to determine the exact number of bodies that were buried in the graves, which mirror an earlier discovery of mass graves at a suspected human trafficking camp on the Thai side of the border.
The gruesome find came at a time when Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are struggling to handle a mass migration of up to 20,000 mostly ethnic Rohingya migrants who have been left adrift in Southeast Asia's seas after they were believed to have been abandoned by their human traffickers.
The Home Minister today did not discount the possibility that Malaysian officials had a hand in either killing or causing the death of the migrants buried in the mass graves.
“Yes, we are still investigating. We don't deny the possibility,” he said.
