PETALING JAYA: Police have handed forensic samples taken from the premises of a company in Rawang suspected of dumping pollutants for a chemical analysis.
Selangor police chief Comm Datuk Noor Azam Jamaludin said yesterday police were waiting for a report from the Chemistry Department to determine if the samples matched the pollutants that led to the contamination of four water treatment plants in Sungai Selangor.
“Forensics police have taken samples from the company premises as part of our investigations. Other enforcement agencies probing the case have also gathered similar samples,” he said.
Police have arrested eight people to date to assist in their investigations.
Four directors, all of whom are brothers of the family-run company Yip Chee Seng & Sons Sdn Bhd, their three staff and a friend of the brothers are in police custody.
The brothers, aged between 50 and 60, were arrested late on Friday and were remanded for six days.
Asked if police would extend their remand order – which expires today – or release them, Noor Azam said they can only decide later today.
While the company, which has been wrongly referred to as a factory, has been accused of dumping effluents from its premises, family members of the four brothers came forward to deny the claims on Sunday.
Yip Siew Thong, a son of Yip Kok Weng, 60, the eldest sibling of the four brothers in police custody, backed the denial yesterday with documents to prove the company had regularly engaged the services of a scheduled waste disposal company for the removal of toxic material from its premises.
Among the documents which were sighted by theSun were “consignment notes for scheduled waste”, which showed the company had scheduled to dispose waste through the disposal company on March 17, after which there were no other disposals as its business came to a halt due to the movement control order (MCO) on March 18.
When its business fully resumed after the MCO restrictions were eased, the company made a disposal on July 25 and another three between Aug 28 and 29.
In all, five consignments were processed by the waste disposal company, with almost 4.5 tonnes disposed, comprising used lubricant oil, waste oil and rags, plastics, paper and oil filters contaminated with scheduled waste.
Siew Thong also produced a Tenaga Nasional bill that categorised the premises as a “bengkel”, or workshop, backing his earlier clarification that the premises was not a factory but a yard where heavy building machinery is stored and serviced.
He also shared the summonses issued to the company by the Department of Environment (DoE), which were offences related to failure in maintaining a proper inventory.
After appealing against the RM60,000 fine, the DoE reduced the summons amount and the company only paid RM26,000.
Asked to comment on a class action suit that was filed against the company on Tuesday by a group of 17 people, including Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia president Datuk Ibrahim Ali for damages they had suffered as a result of the water cut last week, Siew Thong declined to comment but said his lawyers were looking into the matter.
Read this story on our iPaper: Samples taken from firm in water pollution probe
