The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) supported the formation of a royal commission of inquiry to probe what has been described as a worrying population explosion in Sabah.

"The issue should be dealt with at both the state and federal levels," said Suhakam commissioner Prof Hamdan Adnan when contacted today.

He added that due consideration by the authorities should be given to "aliens in the state" as they are also sharing the state's facilities and local residents have expressed their concern.

On Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman's request to the Statistics Department to come up with a response after Suhakam queried the state government, Adnan said that nothing has been forthcoming yet.

Sabah-based non-governmental organisations have claimed that there are at least two million illegal immigrants in the state although this figure has been disputed by the authorities.

They also claimed that at least half of these illegal immigrants have been issued with genuine identity cards (extra people with identity cards - epic).

Following that, they have launched a signature campaign to call on the federal government to set up a royal commission of inquiry to probe the population explosion.

They have also formed a Patriotic Citizens Forum on Identity Cards (Pacific) to collect signatures from concerned citizens to get the government's consent to set up the commission.

Prominent local activist Patrick Sindu, however, was under fire from state politicians for trying to organise the signature campaign.

On this, Hamdan said: "These people want to do their investigation, they should not be stopped, they should be encouraged."

Not much seen to be done

Meanwhile, former Sabah state secretary Simon Sipaun (left) also questioned why the population boom only happened in the state, saying "it can't be of natural growth".

"Although there have been much pronouncement, not much is seen to be done in resolving the matter," said Sipaun, who is also Suhakam's deputy chairperson, when contacted recently.

He said Sabahans have been burdened with the population boom and the locals are becoming like foreigners.

"During a Suhakam roadshow in Kinabatangan, I was told that the population in the district is around 85,000 but only 25,000 of them are Malaysians," he said.

According to the NGOs, in 1970, seven years after becoming a part of Malaysia, Sabah's population was at 653,000. A decade later, it increased by 30 percent to 955,712.

It nearly doubled in 1991 to 1.7 million, including 423,000 non-Malaysians, and increased to 2.6 million (revised for some reasons downwards from 3.1 million), including 615,000 non-Malaysians, in 2000.