Home Ministry secretary-general Mahmood Adam wants PKR Wanita chief Zuraida Kamaruddin to provide evidence or make a police report on her claim that the 6P amnesty programme for illegal foreign workers is used to naturalise them as "phantom voters".

NONE Mahmood ( left ) denied the 6P programme was a political agenda, saying it was an important initiative to ensure national security and it will not compromise with it.

"Using the biometric data under the 6P programme will further improve enforcement process in handling the illegal migrant workers. This has proven to be effective in handling several criminal cases and inter-boundary floutations, including human trafficking," he said.

Three days ago Zuraida, who is also Ampang MP, was quoted to have said the present amnesty programme is directed to create phantom voters.

Illegal immigrants who go through the programme, she said, were made to take an oath of allegiance to BN and Umno.

NONE Zuraida claimed that representatives of the women's wing had "sneaked into the office of a syndicate running the amnesty programme" and found a "script" of the oath.

"(We) found that the illegal migrants are made to take an oath to support Umno and BN to be part of the amnesty programme. (We) managed to get the script to expose this fact to the public," she was quoted as saying.

Mahmood said the ministry considered the allegation a serious one affecting national security, since the 6P programme was a federal initiative.

"We want to get the biometric data of the illegal migrant workers for security reasons to tackle the issue of falsifying identities and a syndicate using it to make international travel documents," he said.

Zuraida takes on challenge

In a recent development, Zuraida said she is prepared to take on the challenge by Mahmood and she will be lodging a police report over her claim next week.

“We are gathering the witnesses... and we have strong evidence to prove the claim,” she told Malaysiakini , adding that she will lodge the report at the Ampang police station.

Zuraida added that she is prepared to work with the ministry to resolve the problem by providing the latter with the necessary evidence.

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