Men with machete threaten farmers to evict

IPOH: Some 30 farmers are living in fear after a group of people armed with parangs threatened to harm them if they did not evict from the land they toiled for between five to 40 years in Mambang Diawan in Kampar.
The farmers lodged a police report at the Ipoh police station here today after the police failed to act on the individuals after a similar report was made at the Mambang Diawan police station on March 29. They said they were disappointed that the police failed to take action against the group despite police reports lodged.
Adviser to the Perak Save Farmers and Livestock Breeders Organisation, M. Sarasvathy, who spoke on behalf of the farmers, said threatening people with a parang is a criminal offence and thus, police should have acted on their complaint.
"It's a land issue and there is no need for violence.Furthermore there is no court order for the farmers to evict as they are still negotiating with the state government on the matter," she added.
Sarasvathy who is also the Parti Sosialist Malaysia (PSM) national deputy chairman said when the farmers sought police help, they were told to take the matter to court.
"The owner of the land should file summons in the court to evict the farmers and wait for a decision instead of resorting to intimidating acts," she added.
According to the farmers' spokesman Steven Kong on March 29 a group of nine men, some armed with parangs, trespassed into the 40ha of land and asked them to evict claiming the land had been leased from the owner for RM30,000 a month.
On April 14, the group with three new faces, whom they claimed to be owners of the land, came with bulldozers to destroy the crops accompanied by policemen.
Kong said the farmers managed to stop them from moving in.
The land, he said, was allocated to a developer in 2007 and some of the farmers had applied for Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL) but have yet to receive it.