Malaysian police said yesterday (Saturday) that they have arrested a total of 355 people as part of an investigation into hundreds of cases of physical and/or sexual abuse of children in reception and shelter homes in the Asian country.

At the heart of this investigation is the business holding group GISB (Global Ikhwan Service and Business Holding), which is accused of not only running these “centres of horror” but also having links to a banned Islamist sect, Al Arkham, which has now been disbanded.

Among those arrested are GISB’s chairman and chief executive, Nasiruddin Ali, and at least 30 employees of the group, always according to police.

Several locations were raided, including charities, health facilities, Islamic seminaries and residences.

The arrest of 171 people on September 11, including “ustaz” (religious teachers) and other educators, had already been announced. Police added that at least 402 children were rescued after searches in 20 homes. Police believe they are children of group workers in Malaysia, explained Inspector General Rajaruddin Hussain.

Initially, the group denied all the allegations and even assured that it did not run the centres involved in the searches, in the states of Selagor and Nekari Sebilan (west).

Then Nasiruddin Ali admitted, on September 14, that there were cases of sexual abuse, “one or two cases of sodomy” in the dormitories, but denied that systematic, mass violence was being recorded.

According to medical reports, at least 13 children suffered sexual violence, according to Inspector General Hussain.

On Tuesday, he announced the freezing of 96 GISB accounts, containing some $124,000 (111,000 euros).

The scandal heightens concern about the fate of children in these homes and the oversight of charities in the country.

The UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for defending children’s rights, condemned the “unimaginable horror” experienced by the young victims.

These children “will need medical and psychological support for an extended period,” Robert Gus, the United Nations Children’s Fund’s representative in Malaysia, said on Thursday.

The Arkham sect was dissolved by authorities in 1994 as the doctrine it proposed was deemed deviant, and heretical. The GISB group has since been targeted by authorities in the predominantly Muslim country.

In 2011, a scandal also erupted when it became known that he had set up a “Hypocrite Wives Club”, a group that urged women to submit to their husbands “as if they were prostitutes” so they would not cheat on them.

On its website, GISB asserts that it is an Islamic holding group that runs companies such as supermarkets and restaurants in several countries, including Indonesia, Britain and France.