Malaysia on Friday extended by a week the deadline for the biometric registration of nearly two million illegal foreign workers, including Indians, to enable them to avail an amnesty programme launched on August 1.

The deadline for biometric registration, scheduled to end on August 14, was now extended to August 21. The fingerprinting exercise was launched with an aim to combat crime and prevent those who are deported from returning to the country under a different identity.

Until yesterday, about 877,884 illegal immigrants had registered, including 25,711 Indian nationals. The biggest number of workers registered were Indonesians (347,394), followed by Bangladeshis (197,908) and Myanmares (70,513).

The amnesty programme was announced in June to deal with the nation's foreign workers, who fill low-paid jobs shunned by locals like plantation and construction work. Under the programme, the illegal foreign workers will either get to work in the country legally or be deported without facing punishment.

The registration process had been smooth and recorded encouraging numbers, Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said, adding the process for legal foreign workers, which started on July 13, would continue indefinitely.

So far 850,233 legal foreign workers had registered with the programme, bringing the total of foreigners both legal and illegal to 1,728,117 people so far.