GEORGE TOWN, Sept 26 ― Residents of a 200-year-old Siamese village nestled in the suburb of Pulau Tikus here are refusing to budge from their homes despite being served a writ of summons by their new landowner last month, which marks the start of the legal eviction process.

The villagers on the contentious piece of land, now owned by a company called Five Star Heritage Sdn Bhd, filed an appearance in court recently to acknowledge the writ and will be filing their defence statement soon to challenge the order, Pulau Tikus assemblyman Yap Soo Huey said, on behalf of the residents.

“They will file their statement of defence soon,” she told a news conference here today.

She added that the residents are now seeking legal recourse on the whole issue and the legality of the land, which was surreptitiously converted into a commercial zone back in 1996.

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“In the original grant by the British, this land was only to be used for the benefit of the Thai and Burmese communities and could not be sold, converted or bargained to another entity,” she said.

According to Yap, the East India Company had, on behalf of Queen Victoria in 1845, granted the whole piece of land that originally stretched from Kelawei Road and Burmah Road, to be held in trust by the Siamese and Burmese communities in Penang.

However, the land was subdivided into two in 2002 where half belonged to the Thai a Trustees and another half to the Burmese Trustees, the Penang state lawmaker said.

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In 2011, the ownership for the portion where the Siamese village is located, which was originally held in trust by Burmese Trustees, was changed to Five Star Heritage.

Yap said the four individual Burmese Trustees were also shareholders and directors in Five Star Heritage.

Due to the legal proceedings underway, Yap said the most urgent matter now is to appeal to Five Star Heritage and the Burmese Trustees to reconsider preserving the village due to its heritage significance.

“We are trying to appeal to them and also to gather more public support to pressure them into cancelling the writ of summons and to preserve the village,” she said, adding that the villagers are also holding a candlelight vigil tomorrow night.

When contacted, one of the Burmese Trustees, Moung Ban Chowi, who is also the Penang Burmese Society chairman and a director in Five Star Heritage, said they are now letting their lawyers handle the whole case.

“For now, I don't want to comment as we are letting our solicitor handling this case,” he said.

Five Star Heritage had submitted an application for planning permission to build a hotel on the site in April this year. The council has yet to approve the application.

For now, Yap said the council will keep the application on hold pending the resolution of the whole issue.

In its court documents filed, Five Star Heritage said it is the registered land owner of the piece of land covering 2,681 sq metre (0.6 acres) in Pulau Tikus and had found “squatters” living there without paying rent.

The company also claimed it had issued notices to the residents to vacate the land several times, but they had failed to comply.

Five Star Heritage claimed it had, through its counsel in July, offered compensation of up to RM30,000 to each of the residents to vacate the land, but they had failed to reply or accept the offer.

“Till today, there was no reply from the defendants with regards to the compensation offered and the defendants had also failed to vacate the land and surrender vacant possession of the land to us,” Five Star Heritage claimed in their statement of claim.

In view of this, the company also submitted a claim through the court for each of the defendants to vacate the land within seven days from the court decision.

It wants each of the residents to pay it RM10,000 in compensation along with 8 per cent interest per year on the amount from the court decision up to the full resolution of the case, costs, legal costs and other relief deemed fit by the court.

The court however, has yet to fix a hearing date for the case.