The government has shelved plans to detain and punish illegal immigrants and is "advising them to go home" while considering a request from Indonesia to extend an amnesty, officials and reports said today.

A three-month amnesty for illegal workers expired at midnight on Monday, but a threatened nationwide sweep to arrest them by hundreds of thousands of immigration officials and civilian volunteers was put on hold at the last minute.

"The original intent was to arrest them and put them against the law but this time we will catch them and advise them to go home," Home Minister Azmi Khalid told AFP .

The government was adopting this new, softer approach because of the Dec 26 tsunami disaster which left more than 289,000 people presumed dead, mostly in Indonesia, Azmi said.

Those who refused to leave the country, however, would "be put against the tough laws", which include jail sentences and whipping, he warned.

"Our officers are on the ground. We know who they are and where they live and we are going to tell them to go home. We will only take tough action against those who are stubborn."

Azmi was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying that the cabinet would Wednesday discuss a late request from Indonesian President Susilo Bamban Yudhoyono that the amnesty be extended.

"The deadline would have been effective if there was no tsunami," Azmi said. "We have to be sympathetic because a large number of illegal immigrants from Indonesia are from (the hardest-hit province of) Aceh."

Three-month extension sought

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had also asked for an extension of the amnesty for three months amid concerns of worsening humanitarian crises in areas devastated by the tsunamis.

Nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants took the opportunity to go home during the amnesty without facing any penalty, leaving at least the same number behind according to official estimates.

Most illegal immigrants are from Indonesia, with others from the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. They are drawn to relatively prosperous Malaysia by jobs in the construction, plantation and service industries.

The Philippine government had also asked Malaysia to extend the amnesty by a month to accommodate the estimated 170,000 Filipinos who failed to take the chance to leave the country legally, according to reports in Manila.