Two Indonesians arrested earlier this month were sentenced to jail today, becoming the first to be punished amid a crackdown on illegal immigrants, media reports said.

Bermawi, 52, a labourer, was sentenced to nine months in jail by a magistrate court in central Selangor state while 41-year-old housemaid Suwarti was imprisoned for six months, the official Bernama news agency said.

Bermawi had overstayed his social visit pass by more than two years while Suwarti's temporary work permit expired in September, it said. They were both however, spared from the whip, which could be meted out to illegals under immigration laws.

1,600 illegals nabbed

The government on March 1 launched a nationwide blitz to weed out hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants after the expiry of a four-month amnesty which had been extended twice at Jakarta's request.

As of Thursday, some 1,600 illegals had been arrested, Zubir Mustafa, assistant operations director of a 300,000-strong civilian security force involved in the crackdown, told AFP .

Malaysia estimates there were nearly a million illegal workers in the country, mostly from Indonesia but also from the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

About 382,000, mostly Indonesians, took advantage of the amnesty, which started at the end of October, to depart without penalty but an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants remain.

The exodus of illegals has caused a severe shortage in the construction and agriculture sectors, which are heavily dependent on cheap foreign labour.