(May 25): Police have yet to ascertain the identities of some 100 bodies found in a mass grave in Padang Besar, Perlis, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He said the forensic team was currently conducting tests to determine if the remains were Rohingya or Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking.

"The forensic unit of PDRM is the same team that went to Ukraine, so they have a lot of experience in identifying the relevant details," he said at the Parliament lobby today.

Zahid was referring to the high level forensic team deployed to the Ukraine to identify the bodies of the passengers on board Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17 which was shot down by an air-to-surface missile on July 17, while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers were killed.

Zahid yesterday confirmed the discovery of the mass graves near 17 tents believed to have been used to accommodate refugees.

He praised Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar for his commitment to ensuring the authorities would have a strong case against individuals suspected to be involved in human trafficking.

He said Malaysian police would work with their Thai counterparts to share information on the matter.

In Kedah, Khalid vowed to get to the bottom of human trafficking activities on Malaysian soil after the discovery of 139 mass graves in Wang Kelian, Perlis.

He said authorities had no time to worry about the world's perception of Malaysia in terms of human trafficking as there was work to be done.

"How can I tell you what others think? What I am doing here is explaining to you what we have found.

"We will investigate. We shouldn't be worried about reputation. We should find the cause of all this, solve it and prevent it from happening.

"That is our stand," he said today, after he was asked how the discovery of the mass graves would affect Malaysia's image internationally.

Khalid said that Malaysia was transparent and had nothing to hide on the matter.

"It saddens me. I am also human. Even if it was just one person, it is still (considered) human trafficking and here we have 139 graves," he said.

Authorities today sent a forensic team of 31 people to the hill to dig up the graves, which were found close together, some 100km from where the Thai authorities found a site of mass graves on their side of the fence.

Khalid said he hoped the team would be able to identify the remains this afternoon.

On the operation, Khalid said: "We started our operations from May 11 to May 23, searching and combing from Tangga Seratus to Kampung Wai, an area that spans across 49.5km."

The area, he said, was divided into three sections: Sector A, from Tangga Seratus to Wang Kelian – a hilly and steep terrain on the Malaysian side and flat on the Thai's; Sector B, from Wang Kelian to Kurung Batang - a hilly site and inaccessible by vehicles; and Sector C, from Kurung Batang to Kampung Wai, made up of villages and paddy fields.

"At the end of the ops, we found 28 abandoned camps in Sector A. One of them was big and could accommodate 300 people. Another could take 100. The rest were smaller for 10 to 20 people, or even just two people," he said.

Khalid said the camps were located about 3km from each other and two or three of them appeared to have been abandoned for more than a year.

"There are old camps, maybe as far back as 2013," he said.

Some were believed to have been recently abandoned, based on the discovery of cooked food like rice and vegetables.

Khalid said the authorities had found 139 graves and a highly decomposed body in Sector A.

"We have yet to determine the gender or ethnicity. Nothing was found in the other two sectors.

On why the camps had not been discovered earlier, Khalid said Sector A was not part of an area patrolled by the authorities.

"We don't patrol the area, which is hilly, and we had no information of people entering the country illegally from there.

"There are also no passages in the area used for smuggling activities... It was only after the Thai authorities found camps on their side earlier this month that we began exchanging intelligence and started our checks here," he said.

Khalid said police were now checking if Malaysian authorities were involved in the human trafficking activities in the area.

He said so far, 37 people had been detained nationwide, 90% of which were made in the northern states of Kedah, Perlis, Perak and the east coast.

"From those arrested, we received information that there are camps holding refugees or immigrants but could not pinpoint the exact locations," he said.

Earlier this month, the Home Ministry denied reports concerning the existence of holding camps and mass graves of illegal ethnic Rohingya migrants on the Malaysian side of its border with Thailand.

Its secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim had said investigations carried out by the police found no such camps or graves in Malaysia.

Following the discovery of "death camps" in southern Thailand, there have been news reports regarding the possibility of similar slave camps housing illegal immigrants on the Malaysian side of the border.

More than 1.3 million Rohingya – viewed by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities – live in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

Fleeing persecution, these refugees usually make their way to Malaysia on rickety boats via people smugglers. – The Malaysian Insider