BATU GAJAH, April 28 — Attempts by a Perak government-linked company to clear out farms in Siputeh yesterday turned ugly when a scuffle broke out between its workers, farmers and political activists.
Some 20 farmers and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) members gathered at the entrance to stop MB Inc staff from entering the farms located on 600ha the state government had alienated to the company in 2012.
MB Inc and Ipoh City Development Sdn Bhd have embarked on a township project on the land. Called Bandar Tasik Amanjaya, it has a gross development value of more than RM2 billion.
The scuffle broke out at about 11am when the group tried to prevent MB Inc workers from digging trenches along the perimeter fencing of the farms.
The 1.5m-deep trenches were dug using excavators brought in a day earlier.
When the farmers and PSM members shouted slogans and climbed on the excavators, police intervened and arrested four of them, including PSM national deputy chairman M. Sarasvathy and Sungai Siput MP Jeyakumar Devaraj’s political secretary, S. Nagesthiran.
According to Save Perak’s Farmers and Breeders Affiliation spokesman K. Kunasekaran, the scuffle happened because MB Inc failed to respect the court process where the state government-linked company was suing the farmers for trespassing on its land.
“The matter pertaining to the status and legality of the land issue is still pending in the Ipoh High Court. It is wrong for MB Inc to send its workers with heavy machinery to demolish the farms,” he said.
“There are nearly 30 parties involved in a legal tussle with MB Inc, 23 of them farmers. Seven others are private companies. Even if MB Inc wants to assert its right to the land, it should not have done so until the court process had been exhausted.”
Sarasvathy said after giving her statement to the police that the farmers would be marching to the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya today to protest against the continued silence of the Perak government and the Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ministry on the matter.
She said a memorandum was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, highlighting the problems faced by more than 600 farmers in Perak facing eviction from state land.
