If deported Indonesian Abdul Mutalib Taib has the future and welfare of his wife and four children at heart, then he should not have got himself involved in forging travel documents and risking their possible deportation, the Immigration Department said.

The department's enforcement division head Ishak Mohamad said if the authorities had not acted to arrest and deport Abdul Mutalib - a Malaysian permanent resident - then they would be blamed for not enforcing the laws.

"People keep harping on why the wife and children have to be punished for what Abdul Mutalib had done. Why don't they ask about the crimes he committed? He should have thought of his wife and children before getting involved in forging documents," he told malaysiakini .

"Abdul Mutalib has to remember that he is to be blamed for the sufferings his family is going through now."

Ishak (left) said this yesterday when met after the official launch of a photography installation held at the Performing Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Abdul Mutalib, a legal PR since 1978 who was held under the Internal Security Act for two years since 1995 for involvement in forging identity cards in Sabah, was deported on April 29, 2005 after a month's detention at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport immigration depot.

Ishak was commenting on the appeals by several quarters for the government to allow Abdul Mutalib and his family to continue staying in the country and to recognise them as PRs.

His wife, whose spousal visa expires in September, faces possible deportation due to her husband's absence. Although three of their four children are Malaysian, they may also be forced to resettle in their parents' native Indonesia in order to stay as a family.

Doing our job

Their plight was highlighted Tuesday by parliamentarian Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh) who in her adjournment speech stressed the government's responsibility to protect the right of the family, in which three of the four children are Malaysian, to stay together in Malaysia.

Following Kok's appeal, Home Minister Azmi Khalid said Abdul Mutalib's wife Romita Hasibuan could return to Indonesia to be with her husband while the four children would have no problem in following their parents back to Indonesia although they were born in Malaysia..

"The children could claim to be Indonesian because their parents are Indonesian. The problem of their citizenship as Indonesians will be solved after they return to Indonesia," the minister told the House.

"We're in a dilemma. We were merely carrying out our duties," said Ishak in reference to Abdul Mutalib's deportation on grounds of being an 'unwanted immigrant'.

"If we don't enforce our laws, people will complain that we are not doing our work. But (in this case), people are complaining after we have taken action," he said.

"Everybody has to keep in mind that Abdul Mutalib was granted permanent residence by the government and that in breaking the laws, he risked bringing suffering upon the rest of his family.

"That's the way of the world," Ishak said.