More than 3,000 people, including Nepalis, have been arrested in a crackdown launched by the Malaysian government on illegal migrants since Monday. Nepali embassy officials in Malaysia said they do not have the exact number of Nepalis arrested so far other than nearly 100 reportedly arrested in the first 24 hours of the crackdown. According to the local media reports, 3,322 undocumented migrants were arrested from places like Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Johor Bahru and Kota Raya as of Wednesday evening. A large number of arrestees are Indonesian and Bangladeshi nationals. They have been kept in immigration detention centres. Malaysian authorities have said those individuals accused of crime would be handed over to police. Days before the Malaysian authorities decided to go tough on illegal migrants, the Nepali embassy had expedited the process of travel document distribution to illegal Nepalis. Around 2,000 Nepalis had received travel documents to return home by Sunday. “We are trying to issue as many travel documents we can to protect as many Nepalis from getting arrested,” said Nepali Ambassador to Malaysia Niranjanman Singh Basnet. However, the number of Nepalis visiting the embassy for travel documents has declined in the wake of the crackdown. It is said many illegal Nepali migrants in Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding areas have stopped venturing outside, let alone visit the embassy, fearing arrest. Before the crackdown, the embassy in coordination with the Malaysian immigration department had been sending home around 80 Nepalis every week. More than 2,000 Nepalis are still in the process of returning home. Ambassador Basnet said their return process has stopped after the crackdown. There are around 2.3 million legal migrant workers in Malaysia, 500,000 among them are from Nepal.