Police arrested a village chief and his brother on suspicion of attempting to register four foreigners to obtain Malaysian identification documents.

The arrest was made during the National Registration Department’s (NRD) mobile registration programme in Kampung Botition, Beluran, yesterday, Beluran OCPD, DSP V Sivanathan, said.

The 58-year-old village chief and his 57-year-old brother were arrested at 2.20pm by policemen who were on duty at the programme following tip-offs from NRD officers.

The Filipino and Indonesian nationals, aged between 20 and 32 years, three of them women, had also been arrested, he said when contacted.

Bernama, which covered the programme, was told that the village chief’s brother had claimed that the four individuals were his children.

The village chief had endorsed the documents to be used to register the foreigners.

At the event, some 460 families submitted applications for late registration of births as well as for identification cards involving 644 children.

Beluran member of parliament Ronald Kiandee said the mobile registration programme helped resolve documentation problems among the people in rural areas.

He said there were many undocumented children in the interior mostly because their parents could not afford to go to towns to register them.

- Bernama